(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Packing on the pounds is bad for your knees –
and may be bad for your hips too, if you’re a man.
That’s 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 didn’t 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
