There are several reasons why your wellbeing may be affected by osteoarthritis, and according to a study published in the January issue of Arthritis Care & Research, your ethnicity may be one of them. As a result of a study from researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago, there is evidence to suggest that if you’re an overweight African-American woman with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis, you are at higher risk of poor functional outcomes than your overweight white female counterpart.
The study was led by Carmelita J. Colbert, MD, and defined a poor four-year functional outcome via function, 20-metre walk and chair stand performance, as laid out by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index. For the study, Colbert and her Northwestern University colleagues looked at 3695 patients who had, or were at a higher risk of knee osteoarthritis. 16.1% of these participants were African-American, and the team analysed whether excess body weight was associated with poorer four-year functional outcomes in this sub group compared with their Caucasian counterparts.
The results of the study showed that if you have a higher body mass index (BMI) and a large waist circumference, you are more likely to have a poorer outcome of knee osteoarthritis. When looking at how these wellness factors affected certain ethnicities and genders, and after they had adjusted for age, education, and income, the researchers found that African-American women had a higher risk of poor outcomes.
When it came to explaining the reason for this difference in osteoarthritis outcomes the researchers surmised that it could potentially explains by income, comorbidity, depressive symptoms, pain, and disease severity. The researchers admitted that their findings were less consistent when applied to the study’s male participants, and could be potentially explained by age and knee pain.
Colbert and her colleagues concluded their report of the study, which was partially funded by Merck, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer as part of the public-private partnership of the Osteoarthritis Initiative, by saying, ‘Among Osteoarthritis Initiative women with excess body weight, African-Americans are at greater risk than whites for poor four-year outcome.’ They added, ‘Modifiable factors that may help to explain these findings in the Osteoarthritis Initiative include comorbidity, depressive symptoms, and knee pain.’
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