The association of osteoarthritis with metabolic disorders

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of synovial joint arthritis that causes chronic pain and disability to a large number of people worldwide. Most often, osteoarthritis affects the joints of the knees, hips, spine and hands. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD, 2021) estimates that osteoarthritis will be the fourth leading cause of disability by 2030, with enormous healthcare costs for treatment, as well as significant indirect costs due to loss of productivity and premature retirement.

The aim of our research is to determine in what way prevalent metabolic syndrome is among participants with osteoarthritis of one of the synovial joints (knees, hips, hands), and whether metabolic disorders are a risk factor for the development and worsening of osteoarthritis.

A prospective clinical study was conducted at the Public Health Institution Health Center Živinice, from July 2022 to May 2024, on a random sample of 200 participants with a confirmed clinical diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA), who were divided into a group with metabolic syndrome and a group without metabolic syndrome based on the NCEP ATP III panel criteria for metabolic syndrome.

The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis is significantly higher compared to the prevalence of hip and hand osteoarthritis, and it is greater among participants with a higher BMI (in participants with the highest BMI, knee osteoarthritis occurs with a 100% probability) and with the presence of metabolic syndrome, especially in more severe forms, specifically radiologically confirmed osteoarthritis, regardless of age and gender. Unlike OA knees the prevalence of OA hips and hands shows no correlation with BMI and metabolic syndrome. Multiple comparative analysis of differences in the average severity of osteoarthritis of the knee of subjects with normal glycemia / prediabetes / diabetes type 2 it showed a statistically significant difference in the average severity of knee osteoarthritis in subjects with regular blood sugar compared to subjects with prediabetes/diabetes mellitus type 2 regardless of age and gender. This means that with an increase in blood sugar levels, the degree of severity of osteoarthritis of the knee increases, since each subsequent Group has a higher average value of this indicator (p<0.05; CI 95%).