Knee problems

ARTHRITIS: WEIGHING IN ON KNEE PROBLEMS

Putting on pounds can give your knees a pounding

Research now suggests that people with knee osteoarthritis can definitely do something to slow progression of the disease: Lighten the load on their knees.

The recommendation stems from a 30-month study that followed 336 people who were overweight, based on their body mass index (BMI), and considered at risk for osteoarthritis, but they had minimal loss of cartilage in their knees.

In a healthy knee, cartilage is the tissue that protects the bones. But when it wears away, and osteoarthritis sets in, the bones rub against each other, often painfully so.

After about 2-1/2 years, more than a quarter of the participants showed a loss of cartilage in their knees. In about 20 percent, the deterioration had been slow, but in nearly six percent, cartilage had declined at a rapid rate.

The more overweight people were, the more apt they were to have rapid cartilage loss, the study found. For every one-unit increase in BMI, the study found, the chance of rapid cartilage loss increased by 11 percent.

"Weight loss is probably the most important factor to slow disease progression," says Frank W. Roemer, MD, co-director of the Quantitative Imaging Center in the department of radiology at the Boston University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, which appears in the August 2009 issue of Radiology.

Sean Scully, MD, an orthopedics professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, agrees. "Don't let yourself get heavy," Dr. Scully warns. "This study shows a direct correlation-people who are heavy are the ones who are getting worse."

article found @ caringtoday.com