Losing Weight Pressure Off Knees

Shedding 10 percent of your body weight if you are overweight or obese can improve your knee arthritis symptoms. And losing even more brings extra, dramatic benefits.

That’s the conclusion of a new study published today, June 18, 2018, in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, by researchers at Wake Forest University.

“For overweight and obese adults with knee osteoarthritis (KOA), substantially greater weight loss, achieved safely, brings with it additional benefits, ” says study coauthor Stephen Messier, PhD, professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

How To Exercise With Bad Knees

While everyone who lost weight got some benefits, people dropping 20 percent or more of their body weight saw an extra 25 percent reduction in some osteoarthritis disease markers compared with people losing from 10 to 20 percent, he says.

The study tracked 240 overweight and obese adults who had knee pain and documented osteoarthritis. Those who lost at least 10 percent benefitted in a number of ways: They reported significantly less pain, had better knee function, were able to walk farther in a six-minute test, and had decreased inflammation and bone-on-bone compression.

For example, those dropping between 5 and 10 percent could walk an average of 1, 713 feet (522 meters) in six minutes by the end of the study, while those losing 10 to 20 percent went 1, 778 feet (542 meters). Meanwhile, the over 20 percent group were able to get as far as 1, 834 (559 meters).

Knee Pain When Squatting? Three Common Fixes

Of course, nobody is saying this level of weight loss is easy to achieve. Of the 240 people enrolled in the study, only 76 of them shed 10 to 20 percent, and just 31 people lost 20 percent or more.

Osteoarthritis is a condition where the joints become painful and stiff, especially in the morning. Depending on the severity, treatment options typically include medication, physical and occupational therapy, physical activity such as stretching, or surgery. Often, symptoms get worse over time.

Weight loss has long been known to play a role in improving the disease. For example, observational data from a study known as the Osteoarthritis Initiative linked greater weight loss with less cartilage damage, according to a study published in July 2016 in the journal Osteoarthritis Cartilage. But whether extra weight loss brings added gains hadn’t been documented in a clinical trial before.

Moving Away From Knee Osteoarthritis

In addition to the benefits to knee arthritis found in this study, losing weight has been found to be helpful for overall health, as well as for many body parts.

A report published by the National Institutes of Health described how weight loss leads to decreased blood pressure, fewer unhealthy blood fats, more good cholesterol, and better balance for blood sugar levels, among other things.

The only downside of the weight loss found in this study was a slight reduction in bone-mineral-density (still above troublesome thresholds) — a finding the authors suggest is more than outweighed by the boost in lifestyle and reduction in pain.

How Much Impact Can 1 Pound Of Fat Have On Your Knee Pain?

Participants in this study lost their weight over an 18-month period. Because this was a reanalysis of the authors’previous study, published in September 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which examined whether diet, diet plus exercise, or just exercise resulted in the most weight loss (the first two groups did better than the last), participants lost the weight in a variety of ways.

Still, a program that combines the right diet plan and appropriate exercise along with learning tools to change ingrained behaviors is best for any significant weight loss effort, according to the NIH report. Medication and even weight loss surgery should also be considered for some people, the NIH says.

Losing weight slowly is best for the body. The NIH suggests that a reasonable time line is six months to drop 10 percent. Decreasing what you eat by 300 to 500 calories a day (500 to 1, 000 calories if you’re severely obese) leads to a 1- to 2-pound weekly weight loss, a healthy rate.

Lose Weight To Ease Your Knee Pain

Mikel Bryant, RD, with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, suggests that a good way to lose weight is to think about what you can add to your diet, rather than what you must take away. “Adding fruits, vegetables, and healthy grains can make you feel full, ” she says. The best diets remain the Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH diet, which are full of these healthy foods.

Bryant also recommends distributing calories more evenly throughout the day. “Rather than the typical American approach of skipping breakfast, grabbing a quick lunch, and then eating a big dinner because you’re hungry, eat more at the earlier meals and less at night, ” she says.

Talk to your doctor about best strategies for you and your personal health challenges. And if you’re not finding weight loss success, don’t be afraid to reach out to a dietitian. “Weight loss is a tricky thing, with genetics, medication, and your environment all playing a role. Dietitians take everything into account and can individualize a plan, helping a person see what they’re doing right and where they can improve, ” Bryant says.

Best Way To Relieve Arthritic Knee Pain

Exercise (with your doctor’s okay) should start gradually, eventually working up to 30 minutes or more of moderate intensity activity most or all days a week, the NIH report declares.

Of course, if you have painful knee arthritis, you might fear working out. Getting assistance from a physical therapist can be helpful.

“There may be an initial increase in pain, but if you slowly increase your exercise time, pain should be reduced and mobility increased, ” Dr. Messier says. “The research is clear: Exercising and losing weight will reduce your pain by 25 percent, ” the amount found in his study, he says.

Losing Weight Could Mean Relief For Chronic Pain Sufferers

Once the weight is gone, you’ll need to continue the combination of exercise and healthy eating in a maintenance plan in order to successfully keep it off, the NIH report advises.

For a chance for people living with knee osteoarthritis to gain more mobility and a better quality of life, the effort (and it certainly is effort) is surely worth it.

Knee osteoarthritis pain and other symptoms improve with weight loss. An exercise and diet plan can benefit knee joint pain or knee osteoarthritis in ...

How To Get Rid Of Knee Fat: 11 Exercises & Tips

Osteoarthritis knee pain is often treated with medication, but there are also natural approaches. Get these natural pain relief tips for knee pain from...

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis, or inflammation of the joints. Known as degenerative joint disease, OA often develops slowly over...

While osteoarthritis symptoms include joint pain, stiffness, and swelling, its testing and diagnosis can be done by an X-ray, MRI, or arthroscopy.

Lose Weight To Fight Knee Pain

Three new studies on OA presented at this year’s European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology meeting looked at comorbidities and the effect of ...

Warfarin and Methotrexate two common drugs, may be important to people living with osteoarthritis, suggest two different studies presented at the American...

Osteoarthritis symptoms can be managed with meds and other tools, but the degenerative disease cannot be stopped or reversed. A drug for another disease...

After Losing 50 Pounds By Walking, 1 Woman Avoids Knee Replacement And Gets Off Blood Pressure Medication

People at risk for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) may have avoided activities that they enjoy like running or biking for no reason. New research suggests that...Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Policy

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most prevalent painful joint conditions and obesity is now recognized as an important modifiable risk factor for osteoarthritis.

And with more than 71% of adults in the U.S. over the age of 20 having overweight or obesity, according to the CDC, it’s probably not a surprise that these weight-induced joint issues are so widespread. 

Does Weight Affect Knee Pain?

So what’s happening to your body and what can you do to mitigate the risks? We talked to a few Cleveland Clinic experts to sort it out.

“Joints in your body’s lower half — particularly your knees and hips — bear most of your weight, ” says Robert Bolash, MD, a specialist in Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Pain Management. “That’s why years of carrying around excess weight contribute to achy, swollen, stiff joints.”

With osteoarthritis, the cartilage “cushion” within a joint degenerates. Bones then rub against each other, causing irritation, pain and swelling. The more weight on the joint, the more wear and tear on the cartilage.

Infographic: 11 Joint Pain Do's And Don'ts

“Maintaining an ideal body weight is important, and if overweight, losing as little as 10 pounds can decrease the progression of your knee osteoarthritis by 50 percent, according to a published study, ” says rheumatologist Elaine Husni, MD, MPH, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Treatment Center. “This is clearly a modifiable risk factor.”

Studies consistently show that overweight people have higher rates of osteoarthritis than people who aren’t overweight. One study found that those who have obesity (with a body mass index [BMI] between 30 and 35) are four to five times more likely to get arthritis in their knees.

If you have weight-induced joint pain, losing pounds and taking stress off your joints may ease your symptoms. While your body can’t reverse arthritis or regrow cartilage, losing weight can help arthritic joints feel better and prevent

Can Knock Knees Be Corrected In Adults?