United States – Osteoarthritis could raise a person’s risk of various other chronic diseases by almost a threefold, indicates a two-decade study.
OA patients would catch numerous other illnesses as decades pass, according to the study.
Wide Range of Affected Conditions
Others are heart diseases, diabetes, mood swings, cancer, and other diseases of the renal, hepatic, pulmonary, and other organs, as reported in a recent report in the RMD Open journal, as reported by HealthDay.
“Our findings suggest that individuals with OA face an almost threefold higher risk of developing severe multimorbidity,” concluded the research team led by Andrea Dell’isola, an associate professor at Lund University in Sweden.
Extensive Study on Swedish Population
Therefore, the authors used medical data of almost 10,000 inhabitants of the south of Sweden diagnosed with OA during the period from 2008 to 2009.
Two control subjects with no osteoarthritis of similar age and sex to each of these OA patients were identified so their health could be monitored and compared.
The study revealed that individuals who were most prone to get sicker as they grew old had osteoarthritis.
Thus, 42 % of those who developed the most chronic illnesses had OA in comparison with 29% of subjects with the lowest number of such illnesses.
Lifestyle and Health Impact
In general, one’s chance of turning into the sickest group rose by approximately 2. 5 fold under OA, according to the researchers.
Researchers could argue that the impact of OA on lifestyle and health could have contributed to this increase in risk.
Patients with arthritis often avoid exercising and are likely to be chronically low-grade inflammation. When coupled with overeating, the factors may raise a person’s risk for many forms of diseases, according to the scientists, as reported by HealthDay.
The difference in disability was most severe in the sickest patients: “suggesting that individuals with OA … are more likely to experience a higher level of disability than those without OA,” the authors concluded.