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Clinicians often recommend that overweight patients who have knee or hip arthritis lose weight, and guidelines support this suggestion (Arthritis Rheumatol 2020; 72:220). However, although weight loss clearly is associated with improvement in knee arthritis, little evidence supports its efficacy for improving hip arthritis.
Researchers analyzed prospective data on 5000 older white American women (age, ≥65) who were evaluated at baseline and 8 years later with plain film x-rays of both hips. At the second evaluation, about half of participants weighed within 5% of their study entry weight, whereas 18% had gained weight, and 32% had lost weight. Among those with hip arthritis at baseline, the rate of radiologic progression was unaffected by we…