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Weight Loss Protects Knee Cartilage
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Medpagetoday.com REPORTS HERE that "weight loss among obese individuals can help prevent the loss in thickness and quality of cartilage associated with knee osteoarthritis (OA), a prospective study showed."

"In a multiple regression analysis adjusting for age, sex, baseline body mass index (BMI), and the presence of clinically apparent osteoarthritis, greater weight loss was associated with less cartilage thinning in the medial femoral compartment as seen on MRI."

"Our findings indicate that weight loss can lead to improved cartilage structural outcomes and may reduce the need for total knee replacements."

"MRI can reveal the earliest structural changes in the knee in patients with OA, long before changes become visible on radiographs."

"Previous studies have demonstrated that patients with OA who lose weight experience improvements in pain and function, but the effects on cartilage structure have not been explored."

"They found that weight loss as low as 7% of body weight was associated with preservation of cartilage quality, and that better quality of the cartilage also improved the knee range of motion."

"Improvements in cartilage quality also have been observed in patients with hip misalignment who underwent osteotomy."

"These findings suggest that early cartilage degradation may be reversible. This has great clinical relevance as it indicates an opportunity for intervention or change before irreversible change in cartilage morphometry occurs."

"The importance of weight loss in obese individuals at risk for OA is heightened further because there currently is no pharmacologic agent that can modulate cartilage loss, they noted."

"They also explained that patients who had weight loss surgery experienced larger improvements in cartilage thickness and quality than those using nonsurgical approaches, which most likely resulted from their greater degree of weight loss as well as other metabolic changes such as levels of adipocytokines."

 
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Original clinical study reports, which contain far more detail than published randomized trials, should be made available to independent researchers seeking to verify efficacy and safety claims.

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To this, [authors] commented, "If FDA is right, the drug's effectiveness may be no better than aspirin or acetaminophen.'"

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