Obesity may cause rapid cartilage loss…and how to prevent it in your kids
I have many patients of all BMI’s, and many with osteoarthritis. I have noticed a connection between obesity and osteoarthritis, especially in the knees. Normally osteoarthritis is slowly progressive with time, age and activity but a small percentage of people exhibit particularly rapid deterioration of cartilage. Many clinicians and researchers suspect that obesity may increase the RATE of cartilage loss that leads to osteoarthritis. Now a new study confirms these suspicions.
Frank Roemer, M.D. and his team from Boston University’s department of radiology have identified several MRI and demographic based risk factors for rapidly progressive cartilage loss. The study looked at 347 knees in 336 patient’s. Their average BMI was 29.5 which is considered overweight. Cartilage loss was identified and defined by MRI findings. They followed the subjects over 30 months.
The top risk factors for rapidly deteriorating cartilage included obesity, the only demographic factor. Age, gender, ethnicity were not found to be risk factors. All the other risk factors were MRI findings so I won’t go into too much detail but they can be found here.
Even a one point drop in BMI is significant. The study found that a gain of one unit of BMI was associated with an 11% increased risk for rapidly deteriorating cartilage and thus arthritis. So logic says that a drop of one unit will significantly decrease that risk. So the goal is weight loss of any kind, not necessarily a huge drop.
So why do we care? It’s yet another confirmation that obesity leads to health problems. More importantly however is that since obesity is a BASELINE risk factor, everyone who is obese should take steps early, BEFORE the onset of cartilage loss and eventually osteoarthritis. Most important is to see your physician or health care provider to discuss getting on a sustainable weight loss regimen.
As a sports medicine and family medicine physician, I urge parents to go one step further. Parents should take preventive steps to ward off obesity in their kids, even if they are only ages 2 or older. Again, talk with your health care provider to find out how and/or look at this very helpful tip sheet, courtesy of the state department of New York.
See the original study here via Medical News Today
