Is Metabolic Syndrome Linked With Hand Osteoarthritis?
Metabolic syndrome is not significantly related to hand osteoarthritis, according to a cross-sectional analysis.
Researchers analyzed data from 1,089 patients (mean age, 59.2 years) in the Framingham offspring cohort and found that 22.5% of participants had osteoarthritis and 41.4% had metabolic syndrome.
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After cross-sectional analysis, researchers recorded no link between hand osteoarthritis and metabolic syndrome. Researchers also analyzed the components of metabolic syndrome, which include central obesity, elevated blood pressure or anti-hypertensive treatment, elevated fasting glucosis or anti-diabetic treatment, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL or lipid-lowering treatment. The component analysis, after adjustments for age, sex, and BMI, revealed an association only between hypertension and hand osteoarthritis (odds ratio, 1.75; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-2.38).
There were 785 people in the cohort who had 7-year longitudinal hand radiographs, with radiographic change observed in 401 (51.1%) of those individuals. Of the participants who had no hand osteoarthritis at baseline, 25.8% developed incident hand osteoarthritis during follow-up. However, metabolic syndrome was not associated with change in Kellgren-Lawrence sum score or incident hand osteoarthritis. Hypertension, though, did show a statistically significant association with change in Kellgren-Lawrence sum score but not with hand osteoarthritis incidence.
According to the researchers, there was no dose-response relationship between hypertension and hand osteoarthritis.
“There is no evidence for a causal association between metabolic syndrome and hand osteoarthritis,” the researchers concluded. They noted that “Central obesity was associated with hand osteoarthritis incidence, but no associations were found in cross-sectional analyses, suggesting that this may be a chance finding. The role of hypertension in the pathogenesis of hand osteoarthritis warrants further investigation.”
—Lauren LeBano
Reference
Strand MS, Neogi T, Niu J, Felson ET, Haugen IK. Associations between metabolic syndrome and hand osteoarthritis: data from the Framingham study. Abstract 86. Osteoarthritis Research Society International World Congress Annual Meeting. April 27-30, 2017.