Osteoarthritis: high BMI increases chance of hip replacement
14 June 2001
People who are severely overweight are up to 3 times more likely to need total hip replacement surgery as a result of osteoarthritis compared with people of a healthy weight.
That was just one of the new findings of a study presented at EULAR 2001, the annual European League Against Rheumatism congress, held in Prague, Czech Republic, from June 13 to 16.
The study, presented by Dr Gunnar Flugsrud of the Ulleval University Hospital in Oslo, Norway, involved data from more than 50,000 people. It analysed the effect of BMI (body mass index, the ratio of a person’s weight to their height squared) and the level of physical activity at work on the chances of having total hip replacement surgery in later years.
BMI is one of the most common measurements of obesity. In Australia BMI values between 20 and 25 are considered healthy, while values between 26 and 30 are considered overweight. A BMI of more than 31 indicates obesity, while a BMI of less than 19 is considered underweight.
In this study, women in the highest BMI quarter [with a BMI of 27 or above] were 3 times more likely to need total hip replacement than women in the lowest quarter. Men in the highest BMI quarter had twice the risk of needing total hip replacement surgery compared with men in the lowest BMI range.
And even within normal BMI ranges, the study showed that the greater the BMI, the greater the risk of needing a total hip replacement.
Physical activity
The study also showed that high physical activity at work increases the risk of total hip replacement surgery as a result of osteoarthritis.
Dr Flugsrud said: ‘Contrary to earlier findings, the effect was equally strong among women in our study. Both women and men in the most active group were more than twice as likely to require total hip replacement than those in the least active group.’
Physical activity, in this case, included heavy manual labour and heavy lifting, not general recreational exercise such as swimming, which may be beneficial, Dr Flugsrud stressed.
The study also found that, as with BMI, the greater the severity of the physical labour, the greater the risk of needing total hip replacement surgery.
Dr Flugsrud added that a high BMI combined with heavy physical labour increased the risk of needing total hip replacement surgery even further.
Dr Flugsrud commented: ‘Currently no cure exists for osteoarthritis other than surgery. It is therefore very important to identify preventable factors that play a role in the development of this debilitating and increasingly common disease.’
Last Reviewed: 29 June 2001
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