Obesity Increases Need For Knee Replacements

This extract from the Telegraph reads that "Obese people put greater strain on the joints in the lower body causing more wear and tear but fat also produces chemicals that attack cartilage.

Research published in the journal Arthritis Research and Therapy found that increased waist circumference and body mass index increased the risk of joint replacement by three or four times.

The study was carried out by Flavia Cicuttini of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, looking at data on 32,000 people.

Dr Cicuttini said: "The obesity epidemic occurring in developed countries is likely to have a significant impact on the future demands for knee and hip replacement for osteoarthritis and understanding the mechanism of action will be important in effective prevention of osteoarthritis.""

A feature of all obesity is fluid retention and this can easily be reduced by significantly reducing intake of salt/sodium and salty food. This sodium reduction results in loss of water weight, i.e. some of the excess fluid the body is carrying is excreted in the urine. Since water is heavy this can mean a significant weight loss and therefore much less strain on the weight-bearing joints, particularly the knee joint. It is a great pity, therefore, that overweight people with arthritis are rarely, if ever, told about this easy, completely safe way of losing weight, which reduces the strain on their joints and and thereby reduces the pain they suffer.

Some obese people suffer fat retention as well as fluid retention. Fat retention is caused by calcium deficiency and can easily be reduced by eating more calcium. A few years ago in Britain BBC2 showed a series of programmes called “The Truth About Food” and I learnt about some Danish research which throws light on this.

BBC reports that "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium - they suggest low fat yoghurt - is a particularly good source for this extra calcium. (It is best not to have much cheese for calcium because cheese contains such a lot of salt.)

In BBC's The Truth About Food site, it says: "Calcium helps keep the weight off. Research suggests that if you don't get enough calcium in your diet, you're likely to be overweight." and also: “Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Let me repeat that. Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Calcium deficiency is a condition in which we fail to receive or to metabolize an adequate supply of Calcium.”

Remember that vitamin D is necessary to metabolise calcium properly, so make sure you are getting enough vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin. There is a growing weight of evidence that overweight is associated with insufficient vitamin D.

All in all, there are good, safe, healthy dietary measures, not involving 'slimming'/dieting or calorie restriction or hunger, that can improve the lives/mobility and lessen the pain of people with arthritis, and would also reduce the numbers of joint-replacements needed.

Margaret Wilde www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk