The prevalence of knee arthritis in the United States has doubled in grownup since World War II . But while many will have already jump to conclusions as to why this might be the case , it is not for the reason you credibly think , as obesity and longer life expectancy were not behindthe dramatic acclivity observed .
presently in the United States , near to 20 percentof people over the old age of 45 are suffering from genu degenerative arthritis . It has long been assumed that this public figure has been changing over time , but to date there has been no work reassert this . Now , researchers from Harvard have finally deal to measure that the pace is indeed increase , publishing the results in theProceedings of the National Academy of Science . But that was not the most surprising facial expression of their work .
“ We are able to say that if you were born after World War II you have approximately twice the likelihood of get human knee osteoarthritis at a render eld or BMI than if you were born earlier , ” explained study co - author Daniel Lieberman ina program line .
To test how the preponderance of the condition has modify over sentence , the researchers hit the books over 2,500 skeletal frame traverse over 6,000 years of chronicle . Because of how knee osteoarthritis evidence itself in the human trunk , with the bone in the stifle directly rubbing on each other to make a polished airfoil , the researchers were able to assess its preponderance in three primary sentence periods , prehistoric , early industrial , and modern post - industrial .
The most important comparison was between the last two of these three periods , as the researchers had access to vast amounts of data on each person ’s age , sex , physical structure weight , and even moving in and age of death . This permit them to correct for many factors that we might look to regulate the developing of knee arthritis , including weight and historic period .
It is often assumed that the increase in arthritis in the modern age is due to an increase in rates of obesity , as well as the simple fact that people are living longer . But this latest research discover that neither of these factors had an wallop on the rate of stifle arthritis , and that even when both were right for , the preponderance still increased after the Second World War .
“ Knee osteoarthritis is not a necessary aftermath of old age . We should conceive of this as a partly preventable disease,”saidLieberman . The research worker are now bring on try out to name exactly what other factors may be behind this increase in the condition , focus on changes that have occur post - war . In the foresightful run , this might help others find a way to keep it in the first position .
