RESEARCH - Obesity hikes risk of eventual joint replacement

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Obesity Hikes Risk of Eventual Joint Replacement

By Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

Published: March 05, 2009

Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD

MELBOURNE, Australia, March 5 -- Overweight individuals followed for

up to 15 years were more likely to require hip or knee replacements

than slimmer people, researchers here found.

Study participants in the top quartile of body mass index (BMI) were

3.44 times as likely to undergo primary joint replacement (95% CI 2.80

to 4.22) in later years compared with those in the bottom quartile,

reported Flavia Cicuttini, M.D., of Monash University, and colleagues

online in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

Similar results were found for other measures of adiposity, including

body weight, fat mass, percentage fat, and waist circumference.

The results appear to contradict another study published this week

that found no relationship between BMI and radiographic progression of

knee osteoarthritis.

But that study involved less than three years of follow-up. It also

found that BMI was a significant predictor of new osteoarthritis

diagnoses. (See: Weight Loss Not Much Help for Arthritic Knees)

The analysis by Dr. Cicuttini and colleagues involved participants in

a longitudinal study of nearly 40,000 initially healthy Melbourne

residents -- including about 20% immigrants -- that began in 1990.

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Read the whole article here:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Arthritis/13132

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