The Association of Radiographic Foot Osteoarthritis and Radiographic Osteoarthritis at Other Sites
Osteoarthritis & Cartilage March 2005
Frances V. Wilder, PhD, John P. Barrett, MD, and Edward J. Farina, PhD, PT
If you’ve got OA in your feet, you might have it elsewhere too!
Scientists are giving lots of attention to the hereditary aspects of osteoarthritis. If your mom has it, will you get it too? If I have it in one part of my body, will I get it elsewhere? In this study, we identified persons with foot osteoarthritis and determined how many of them also have osteoarthritis of the knee or hand. We looked at over 3436 persons. Sure enough…we found that if you have foot OA, you are over 2.5 times more likely to have it in your hands also.
we found that if you have foot OA, you are over 3 times more likely to have it in your knees also. And that’s after we considered the influence of your age, your gender and your occupation. Two scientific avenues of scientific inquiry are pursued when looking at OA: mechanical (wear and tear) and genetic. This study supports the latter theory.
This association was still statistically significant after considering age, body mass index, and work history. While other studies have not specifically examined co-occurrence with foot OA, our findings are consistent with results from related studies.
Conclusions: There are very few studies that have explored foot osteoarthritis. Our findings support the theory of a systemic, or “overall”, avenue of involvement in the development of osteoarthritis. Future scientific studies that further tease out the relationship between osteoarthritis at different body sites (e.g. the spine) will give is a better ability to describe the influences of systemic factors in the development of this disease.
Since 1988, the Arthritis Research Institute of America (ARIA) has been studying thousands of participants to learn more about osteoarthritis. The 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit research organization is based in Clearwater, FL, but its findings have been published worldwide. ARIA’s x-ray database is globally acknowledged as one of the most complete sources of information about the progression of osteoarthritis. For information, call (727) 461-4054.
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