Osteoarthritis treatments: weight loss and weight management

Professor David Hunter, rheumatologist 

Weight loss is a really important treatment for a person with osteoarthritis for a lot of different reasons, one by losing weight you'll take the load off the joints that are otherwise affected and by so, doing help with the pain and loss of function that comes from the joint. In addition to that weight loss is a really important risk factor both for the development of the disease but also ongoing structural change. So, your ability to change the course of the disease by losing weight is another really important advantage. The benefits of losing weight for a person with osteoarthritis include meaningful improvements  in a person's pain, improvements in function and improvements in the long term disease course, so the likelihood of a joint structurally changing over time and by so doing reduce your  chance of requiring a joint replacement and in addition to that there are also mortality  benefits so you're less likely to die if you lose weight in the context of osteoarthritis. But most important is those really critically and meaningful improvements in a person's pain if you lose 10% of your body weight you can expect a 50% improvement in the pain coming from your knee with osteoarthritis.

Professor, Rana Hinman 

 Okay from a physio perspective and certainly from the research evidence that's out there, the two most important interventions or treatments that people really should be involved in is exercise and also weight loss. So, weight loss for people who are overweight or maintaining body weight for those who are at normal weight. It really is critical and a really core component, and that's important to emphasize that this is for anybody with arthritis irrespective of your age, comorbidities or other conditions that might be affecting you. Irrespective of the severity of your arthritis and your knee pain, exercise and weight loss are integral for for all patients