KNEE OA MORE LIKELY TO ADVANCE IN OBESE PEOPLE

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 25, 2008 – In people with knee osteoarthritis (OA), those who are obese are more likely to develop advanced, end-stage disease than those who are of healthy weight, according to research funded in part by the Arthritis Foundation and presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco.
Using a computer model of knee OA progression based on published national data, scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill projected the occurrence and progression of knee osteoarthritis among several cohorts of individuals stratified by the presence at age 60 of obesity, knee pain and radiographic knee osteoarthritis.
The research team, led by first author Holly Holt and Principal Investigator, Elena Losina, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, found that 70 percent of obese adults with mild knee OA at age 60, who survive 20 years, will develop advanced, end-stage disease by age 80. In contrast, just 43 percent of non-obese adults with mild knee OA will have end-stage disease after 20 years.