No Link Between Recreational Physical Activity, Incident Knee OA

Recent research negates any correlation between physical activity and the development of knee osteoarthritis (OA).

To examine the relationship between recreational physical activity and incident knee OA outcomes, researchers acquired data from 6 global, community-based cohorts of participants with no evidence of knee OA or rheumatoid arthritis at baseline. Participants were followed up for 5-12 years for incident outcomes including: radiographic knee OA, painful radiographic knee OA, and OA-related knee pain.

Recreational physical activity was self-reported and included sports and walking/cycling activities. These activities were quantified at baseline as metabolic equivalents of task (MET) in days per week. Using individual participant data meta-analysis, the researchers calculated and pooled risk ratios (RRs). There was also a secondary analysis to assess the association between physical activity (hours per week spent in recreational physical activity) and incident knee OA outcomes.

From a total of 5,065 participants, the pooled RR estimates were not significant for the association of MET days per week with any of the three outcomes (painful radiographic OA: RR 1.02 [95% confidence interval, 0.93–1.12], radiographic OA: RR 1.00 [95% CI 0.94–1.07], and OA-related knee pain: RR 1.00 [95% CI 0.96–1.04]. There were also no significant associations between hours per week spent in physical activity and any of the outcomes.

—Allison Casey

Reference:
Gates LS, Perry TA, Golightly YM, et al. Recreational physical activity and risk of incident knee osteoarthritis: An international meta-analysis of individual participant-level data. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2022; 74(4):612-622. DOI:10.1002/art.42001