Researchers found that moderate physical activity does not increase the risk of radiographic knee osteoarthritis in patients who are 45 years or older, according to research from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project.

“This study shows that engaging in physical activity at these levels is not going to put you at a greater risk of knee osteoarthritis,” Joanna M. Jordan, MD, director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, stated in a press release. “Furthermore, we found this held true no matter what a person’s race, sex or body weight is. There was absolutely no association between these factors and a person’s risk.”

 

Joanna M. Jordan

Jordan and colleagues examined the physical activity of 1,522 patients from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project between 1999 and 2010, according to the abstract. They noted the Department of Health and Human Services suggests a minimum of 150 minutes of activity per week and sought to answer whether meeting that minimum amount of physical activity per week increased the incidence of radiographic knee osteoarthritis (OA) or symptomatic incident radiographic knee OA.

Although the researchers did not find a correlation between patients with 150 minutes or greater of physical activity per week, they noted patients who had 300 minutes or more of physical activity per week had a higher, but statistically insignificant increased risk of incident radiographic knee OA and symptomatic incident knee OA compared with patients who had no activity to 10 minutes of activity per week, according to the abstract.

Reference:

Barbour KE. Arthritis Care Res. 2013;doi:10.1002/acr.22120.

Disclosure: This study was funded in part by grants from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Association of Schools of Public Health, the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Multipurpose Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disease Center and the NIAMS Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center.