For patients with osteoarthritis in the knee, simple movements can cause a great deal of pain, but new research out of Australia suggests symptoms can be alleviated with weight loss.
According to the study published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, obese participants who lost weight over a two-year period experienced less knee cartilage loss than those individuals who maintained or gained weight. The less cartilage a person has in their knees, the more likely they are to suffer from pain or osteoarthritis symptoms.
“Although osteoarthritis is a disease of the whole joint, articular cartilage loss is the hallmark of disease severity and progression,” said senior author Flavia Cicuttini. “We know that loss of cartilage correlates with the severity of knee osteoarthritis as measured using X-ray, so the worse the X-ray the less tibial cartilage there is. We know that the less tibial cartilage there is, the more knee pain there is, and loss of tibial cartilage predicts the need for knee replacement.”
The Study
For their study, researchers tracked 112 obese adults over a period of 2.3 years to see if weight loss had an effect on the amount of cartilage in their knees. Researchers measured their knee cartilage at the beginning and conclusion of the program, and they found:
- For every 1 percent of weight loss, participants reported a 1.22mm decrease in the loss of medial tibial cartilage volume.
- For every 1 percent gain in weight, participants experienced an extra 1.2mm in cartilage loss.
In other words, the more weight a person lost during the study, the more cartilage they had left in their knees at the conclusion.
“These results suggest that in obese people, weight change has a potentially disease modifying effect on both knee joint structure and symptoms,” said Dr. Andrew Teichtahl and colleagues. “While weight loss is an important primary management strategy in obese individuals to reduce their knee symptoms and deleterious structural changes, avoidance of further weight gain must also be a management goal in obese individuals.”
Dr. Silverman comments
If you didn’t believe your doctor before, here is the proof. Losing weight can help prevent symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.
Give up on the “I can’t exercise so I can’t lose weight line.” Start by eating healthy foods and ditching the processed junk. Avoid sugar filled substances, and eat lots of vegetables and healthy proteins. The weight will come off without exercise. All it takes is a commitment to be healthier.
Related source: Medscape