As you know, excess weight is a big burden for the whole body and, above all, for the joints. In obese people, the knee joints most often suffer.
Osteoarthritis of the knee is a degenerative disease that affects all structures of the joint, leading to deformation and loss of mobility of the knee. This disease is quite widespread and occurs in approximately 10-15% of the population.
The higher a person’s weight, the faster this pathology develops.
Deforming osteoarthritis most often affects older people and women over 40 years of age who are overweight. The risk of developing this disease in obese people is four times higher than in people of normal weight. In addition to weight, pathological changes in the joint are affected by metabolic disorders and hormonal imbalances.
Osteoarthritis does not respond well to drug therapy. The disease can be “slowed down” for a while by taking medications, but it cannot be completely cured. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, on the one hand, relieve pain and inflammation, and on the other hand, when administered for a long time, they inhibit the synthesis of substances necessary for the restoration of cartilage and accelerate its destruction.
Joint diseases are very closely related to metabolic disorders. Osteoarthritis is more often diagnosed in young people due to their passion for fast food and leading a sedentary lifestyle. Preservatives and stabilizers supplied with food cause the accumulation of chondrocalcinates in the joints and worsen the chemical composition of the joint fluid.
The load that is created by your own body is the biggest problem with arthrosis. A diet for osteoarthritis for the treatment of obesity is simply necessary, since losing weight even by a few kilograms significantly improves the general condition of the patient, swelling and inflammation in the joint decreases, and its mobility increases.
With osteoarthritis of the knee joints, in the event of complete destruction of the cartilaginous structures, the patient requires a rather complex operation to replace the joint with an artificial prosthesis.
The disease often ends in disability of the patient.
American researchers became interested in the problem of deforming osteoarthritis.
A group of scientists from the University of California, led by Alexandra Gersing, found in the course of their research that losing excess weight helps slow down the process of degeneration of cartilage tissue in joints with osteoarthritis.
Scientists have shown in their experiments how losing excess weight affects the condition of the cartilage tissue of the knee joints. 506 people took part in the scientific study. They were overweight or suffered from varying degrees of obesity. All participants were found to be at high risk of developing deforming osteoarthritis, and some volunteer participants were already diagnosed with the initial or middle stage of the disease.
All participants in the scientific study were divided into three main groups. People who were in the first group did not lose weight and continued to live their normal lives, while those who were in the second group lost several extra pounds. Participants in the third group followed a diet and exercise regularly, and as a result lost more than 10% of their weight. All patients who took part in this experiment underwent a full examination, including magnetic resonance imaging. Using this method, the condition of the cartilage tissue of the joints was determined.
Observations of three groups of patients continued for four years. During the experiment, it was found that the process of degeneration of joint cartilage tissue slowed down in those patients who lost more than 10% of their original weight. The anatomical and physiological state of the joints practically did not change in those patients who did not lose weight or lost only slightly. According to scientists, moderate physical activity along with weight loss can prevent the pathological process of osteoporosis.
In order to improve the functional state of joints, a person should eat natural foods, more fruits and vegetables. It is necessary to avoid salt, as well as processed foods, sausages, fatty meats and fish.
For Americans, this problem is very relevant, since the number of people with metabolic syndrome is growing every year, including among adolescents and children.
In their next studies, scientists want to find out how diabetes that occurs in obese people affects the condition of the knee joints.
Obesity is a subject of discussion not only among nutritionists, but also among other doctors, including those involved in the treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system. Excess weight and joints are closely related. When excess kilograms are loaded on joint structures, cartilage is damaged, connective tissue is destroyed, and deforming osteoarthritis or other pathologies of the osteoarticular system may occur.
How does excess weight affect joints?
With obesity, the load on the spine and lower limbs increases, which leads to accelerated wear of connective tissues, their deformation, and destruction. Such pathological processes provoke the development of joint diseases. In addition, excess weight has the following negative effects:
- changes lymph and blood circulation, which leads to stagnation;
- interferes with the receipt of useful substances by the joint tissue;
- provokes flat feet, osteochondrosis, arthrosis;
- due to impaired metabolism, it promotes the destruction of cartilage, and as a result, the growth of bone on top of the joint and the appearance of osteophytes.
A heavy load during obesity can cause the appearance of gonarthosis. Problems with the musculoskeletal system can begin with a weight gain of 0.5 kg. Such a small increase can lead to displacement of the vertebrae, and the knees may hurt when walking or squatting. This doesn't happen to all people. Much depends on the characteristics of the organism. The more weight, the greater the pressure on the spine. Heavy loads often affect the knees. Excess weight can cause a disease such as gonarthrosis. Its symptoms occur in stages:
- Knee pain after sleeping and climbing stairs.
- Pain and crunching when moving.
- The pain is constantly present. The joints are deformed and there is no full flexion or extension.
How to understand that you are overweight?
There are many methods for calculating excess weight. One of them is calculating body mass index. To do this, they weigh themselves and measure their height. Then the mass indicator in kg is divided by height (m) squared and the required index is obtained. A person has normal weight if the indicator is between 18-25. A value below 18 is underweight. When the number is above 25, extra pounds appear. If the result is 25, then the person needs to lose 4 kg (25=4 is an indicator).
What to do about the problem?
Before starting the fight against excess body weight, you must first consult with specialists to prescribe a set of measures in order to achieve an effect and not harm the body.
To get rid of the gained kilograms, it is first recommended to identify the cause of their appearance. When legs, knees, joints hurt, and the spine aches, then people begin to seriously think about their health. They want to quickly get rid of the extra pounds they have gained, which initially did not seem like such a huge problem. But, in addition to desire, you must first find out the reason for the weight gain, and then take action. Achieving this goal is difficult, but quite possible. This is easier than treating joint pathologies caused by excess weight.
“It has long been proven that excess weight negatively affects the condition of the joints. Obesity results in an increased risk of developing osteoarthritis. This is a serious disease, the outcome of which is the destruction of all parts of the joint: cartilage, subchondral bone, capsule, ligaments and even adjacent muscles. Osteoarthritis is the most common reason for total joint replacement. E the disease leads to disability.
Today I will tell the readers of the site why weight deprivation is one of the main factors of rapid development osteoarthritis, and what you need to do to prevent joint destruction“- says the sports traumatologist, joint doctor, candidate of medical sciences, founder of the arthrotherapy technique.
The effect of excess weight on the risk of osteoarthritis
To assess whether your weight is normal, the BMI indicator is used - body mass index. This is a number that is calculated by the formula: a person’s body weight is divided by his height squared. A BMI above 25 kg/m2 is considered overweight. If this indicator exceeds 30 kg/m2, first degree obesity is diagnosed.
Epidemiological studies show that women have a slightly higher risk of obesity than men. Most often, excess weight begins to appear after 50 years. But if body weight increases above normal during working age, then increased health risks are noted.
It's not just the joints that are affected. The likelihood of diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, arterial hypertension, heart attack, stroke, and cholelithiasis increases. Women have an increased risk of cervical, breast and ovarian cancer.
Here is some evidence confirming the negative impact of excess weight on joints:
Photo: from the personal archive of Yu. Glazkov
- A meta-analysis by L. Jiang showed that an increase in body mass index for every 5 kg/m2 increases the likelihood of developing osteoarthritis by 35%.
- Canadian scientists have found that among patients with a body mass index of more than 30 kg/m2, osteoarthritis occurs 7 times more often than in people with a BMI of less than 25 kg/m2.
- In Sweden, a survey of more than 27 thousand people showed that with obesity, the risk of osteoarthritis increases 8 times compared to people with a normal body mass index.
- In the UK, a study of 525 patients over 45 years of age showed that a body mass index above 36 kg/m2 increases the likelihood of knee arthrosis by 13.6 times compared with people of normal weight.
- A study by F. Cicuttini of twins found that each kilogram of weight gain in an obese person increased the risk of osteoarthritis by an average of 11%.
Why does osteoarthritis develop with excess weight?
Thus, there is no doubt that increasing body fat mass leads to joint destruction. Why is this happening?
Considered overweight body mass index from 24 to 30, if above 30, then this is already obesity, which in itself is a disease. Until the 19th century, humanity was not faced with the problems of obesity and related diseases, since our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers did not have the habit of overeating and exercising little.
Civilization made our life easier, now we rarely walk and have the opportunity to eat what we want and how much we want. As a result, the problem of excessive obesity for humanity in recent decades has been global. According to statistics, 25% of the population in our country suffers from obesity, which means that every fourth Russian has dysfunctions of the circulatory, respiratory, metabolic and musculoskeletal systems.
Obesity not only disfigures the figure, but also increases the load on the spine, joints of the knees and feet. That is why, after 45 years, people who are overweight more than 10 kg begin to complain of pain in the back, knee, hip and ankle joints when walking.
Excess weight changes biomechanics of the spine. After all, a large belly is actually a greatly stretched abdominal wall, where the internal organs of overweight people are displaced. As a result, the center of gravity of the body also shifts forward. To keep the back straight, the pelvic bones are forced to rotate forward, which leads to increased stress on the spine and deformation of the joints.
Obese women tend to have large breasts, which shouldn’t make them happy either: the larger the mammary glands, the more the thoracic spine is overloaded. Just like a big belly, breasts larger than a size three shift the body's center of gravity, which leads to tension in the lower back muscles and pain.
The increased load in obese people falls first on the knee and ankle joints. Bearing excess weight every day, the ligaments are stretched, and tension appears in the places where the muscles are attached. Cartilage tissue, which experiences constant increased pressure, wears out quickly. The knee joints especially suffer from this, and pain in the ankle joint occurs mainly when an overweight person awkwardly twists his leg while walking.
Among the diseases that most often affect overweight people, one of the first places is occupied by osteoarthritis, a characteristic sign of the onset of development of which is clicking sounds when moving and pain in the affected joint. At first, the knee joints hurt only when walking, and then there is increased muscle fatigue and weakness, a feeling of chilliness and “pins and needles” on the legs, and finally, intermittent claudication.
Hip joint more durable, but it can also suffer from excess weight. In a healthy person, the ligaments of the hip joint keep the body in balance, but in obese people, due to a large belly, the point of balance shifts forward. This greatly increases the already serious load not only on the lumbar vertebrae, but also increases the tension in the muscles and ligaments of the back, which is certainly transmitted to the muscles and joints of the legs. Therefore, overweight people complain that they cannot stand on their feet or walk for a long time; the pain literally shoots through them from the neck to the heels, along the spine.
Obesity necessarily accompanied by metabolic and hormonal imbalances.
A slowdown in metabolism can lead to swelling in obese people and the level of uric acid in the blood increases sharply, which accelerates tissue degeneration and aging of the body, and hormonal imbalance is one of the reasons for the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
For disease prevention musculoskeletal system and to prevent disability in adulthood, it is important to consult a doctor as soon as clicks appear when moving in the joints and fatigue, but there is no pain in the legs yet. The sooner you start treating diseases of the joints and spine, the greater the chance of avoiding the dangerous manifestations of obesity.
Of course, to the fat man who comes with a complaint of pain in the back and joints When you go to see a doctor, the first thing you’ll be advised to do is lose weight. With weight loss, the condition of the spine improves, the load on the joints of the legs decreases, as a result of which the pain in the back and legs often goes away. But practice shows that people who are overweight above 10 kg cannot lose them forever without the help of a nutritionist.
Moreover, overweight man due to leg pain begins to move less and spends most of the time in a chair or bed, which leads to further weight gain. A vicious circle arises that cannot be broken without the help of nutritionists. It is dangerous for obese people to go to the gym; first they need to set a goal - to walk one stop, then gradually increase the feasible load.
To stop the process joint destruction, usually prescribed to obese patients suffering from osteoarthritis, chondroprotectors, vitamins and calcium supplements. Physiotherapeutic procedures are an addition to the main treatment of joint pathologies. But without following a diet, avoiding sweet, fried and fatty foods, it is rarely possible to achieve good results in obesity.
Therefore, for fat people for back and joint pain it is necessary to make every effort to reduce body weight, and if a person does not have the desire and willpower to lose weight, then with age it is no longer possible to cope with joint diseases using conservative methods and one has to undergo surgery on the joints - endoprosthetics.
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24.11.2017
Treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system is unthinkable without normalizing body weight. Being overweight increases the load on your joints and spine. Let's look at how excess weight affects joints. If we think of it figuratively, an overweight person can be compared to a loader who carries excessive weights from place to place every day. Moreover, the greater the excess mass, the greater the load. Naturally, by the evening, a person who has been carrying heavy loads will become more tired and may experience pain in the back and joints. Over time, arthrosis of the joints develops, the cartilage layer wears away, which reduces the friction of the articular surfaces against each other, irreversible changes occur in the cartilage tissue of the joints, and the arch of the foot becomes flattened.
The effect of excess weight on the spine follows the same principle. Carrying “heaviness” every day in the form of excess weight leads to back pain and the development of spinal osteochondrosis. The spinal column loses its flexibility and mobility, and as a result, spinal hernias may appear. Depending on the distribution of fat deposits, the center of gravity may shift, which also adversely affects the condition of the spine. Curvature of the spine (lordosis) may develop.
At the Gorny Sanatorium you will receive advice from a nutritionist and psychotherapist, learn the basics of proper nutrition and increase your physical activity. The main goal of our program is not short-term weight loss through diets and exhausting exercises in the gym, but the formation of correct eating behavior, increasing physical activity, and developing the psychology of being slim. Instead of excess fat mass, you will acquire a reliable muscle corset that holds your spine.
The program includes:
- consultation of specialists;
- physical activity, developed individually, taking into account age, concomitant diseases, and general condition of the patient (physical therapy, swimming, training on exercise machines);
- physiotherapeutic methods of influence;
- climatotherapy, walks in the fresh air;
Behavioral attitudes acquired during a course of treatment in a sanatorium will help you avoid “food temptations” when visiting, attending holiday dinners, and in other everyday situations. This will help consolidate and improve the results achieved during treatment at the sanatorium. When weight is normalized, the load on the joints and spine inevitably decreases. This has a beneficial effect on the general condition of patients with diseases of the musculoskeletal system.
In addition to a wellness program aimed at weight loss, exciting excursions await you. The picturesque surrounding nature, friendly staff, comfortable rooms, modern equipment will help you have a good rest and escape from everyday worries.
