Extra Pounds Increase Knee, Hip Risks
Reported June 02, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) Packing on the pounds is bad for your knees and may be bad for your hips too, if youre a man.
Thats the key finding from researchers who compared nearly 1,500 people in Iceland who had undergone hip and knee replacements for osteoarthritis with about 1,100 who had not. All were born between 1910 and 1939.
Overall, women who were overweight were four times more likely to have a knee replacement than women who were of normal weight. Men were about five times more likely.
But women didnt appear to have an increased risk for hip replacement if they were overweight. Men, on the other hand, were about 70 percent more likely to need a hip replacement if they were considered obese.
The study supports a positive association between high body mass index (BMI) and total knee replacement in both sexes, but for total hip replacement the association with BMI seems to be weaker, and possibly negligible for women, the authors were quoted as saying.
The study was conducted by investigators from Lund University Hospital in Lund, Sweden.
SOURCE: Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, published online May 27, 2008
