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Impact of obesity and knee osteoarthritis on morbidity and mortality in older americans Full Text
Annals of Internal Medicine, 02/18/2011
Clinical Article
Losina E et al. – The number of quality-adjusted life-years lost owing to knee OA and obesity seems to be substantial, with black and Hispanic women experiencing disproportionate losses. Reducing mean BMI to the levels observed a decade ago in this population would yield substantial health benefits.
Methods- U.S. Census and obesity data from national data sources combined with estimated prevalence of symptomatic knee OA to assign persons aged 50 to 84 years to 4 subpopulations: nonobese without knee OA (reference group), nonobese with knee OA, obese without knee OA, and obese with knee OA
- The Osteoarthritis Policy Model, computer simulation model of knee OA and obesity, used to estimate quality-adjusted life-year losses due to knee OA and obesity in comparison with reference group
- Estimated total losses of per-person quality-adjusted life-years ranged from 1.857 in nonobese persons with knee OA to 3.501 for persons affected by both conditions, resulting in total of 86.0 million quality-adjusted life-years lost due to obesity, knee OA, or both
- Quality-adjusted life-years lost due to knee osteoarthritis and/or obesity represent 10% to 25% of the remaining quality-adjusted survival of persons aged 50 to 84 years
- Hispanic and black women had disproportionately high losses
- Model findings suggested that reversing obesity prevalence to levels seen 10 years ago would avert 178,071 cases of CHD, 889,872 cases of diabetes, and 111,206 total knee replacements
- Such reduction in obesity would increase quantity of life by 6,318,030 years and improve life expectancy by 7,812,120 quality-adjusted years in U.S. adults aged 50 to 84 years
