Weight-bearing physical activity may increase risk of radiographic knee OA
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Key takeaways:
- Weight-bearing activity may be associated with an increased risk of radiographic knee osteoarthritis.
- Patients with decreased lower limb muscle mass may also be at increased risk.
According to published results, weight-bearing recreational physical activity may be associated with an increased risk of knee osteoarthritis in adults with decreased lower limb muscle mass vs. non-weight-bearing activity.
Researchers performed a prospective cohort study of 9,483 knees from 5,003 participants (mean age, 64.5 years) who completed baseline knee measurements on X-ray. Mean follow-up was 6.33 years.
Researchers analyzed participants’ weight-bearing vs. non-weight-bearing recreational physical activity and any associations with incident knee OA, which was determined by knee X-rays and a pain questionnaire. According to the study, researchers also measured participants’ lower limb muscle mass index using DXA.
Among all knees, researchers found an 8.4% rate of incident knee OA. They found weight-bearing activity was associated with increased odds of incident knee OA (OR = 1.22), while non-weight-bearing activity was not associated with increased odds of incident knee OA (OR = 1.04).
After stratification analysis, researchers found weight-bearing activity was associated with incident OA among the 431 participants in the lowest lower limb muscle mass index tertile (OR = 1.53), but not among participants in the middle (OR = 0.93) or highest (OR = 1.15) tertiles.
Researchers concluded the impact of joint loading for adults with low lower limb muscle mass index may increase the risk of radiographic knee OA.
“Although physical activity is known to have numerous health benefits, our study suggests that caution is needed when engaging in weight-bearing activity,” the researchers wrote in the study.
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