ADIPOQ and rheumatoid arthritis: Multiple studies have shown that RA-autoantibodies, as well as cytokines and chemokines, appear up to 14 years before the onset of RA, suggesting a clear ‘pre-clinical’ period of RA.[1–4] Given this pre-clinical period of autoimmunity and inflammation, and altered body composition where muscle mass is lost and adipose tissue is preserved, regardless of changes in body weight, we hypothesized that adiponectin, a cytokine secreted by adipose tissue, may play a role in this pre-clinical inflammatory period.