Osteoarthritis and obesity
Signals of adipose tissue cause degeneration of joints
The mechanisms by which obesity leads to the occurrence and progression of osteoarthritis are not fully understood due to the complex interactions of a number of factors - metabolic, biomechanical and inflammatory, accompanying obesity. And since the main reason in this case is recognized as a simple overload of the joints against the background of increased body weight, there are few studies of the relationship between obesity and osteoarthritis.
On the left – a healthy knee joint, on the right – affected by osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative-inflammatory disease of the joints, which is usually associated with increased mechanical stress due to excess weight.
However, there is evidence that obesity affects the joints directly, through biochemical signals sent by fat cells, which opens up new possibilities for the treatment of this widespread disease.
The main causes of osteoarthritis are considered to be degeneration of cartilage tissue in old age, as well as injuries and repetitive movements of the same type. In addition, this disease often affects people with obesity, which is considered one of the main risk factors for osteoarthritis due to high mechanical loads on the joints. Nowadays osteoarthritis is increasingly common in children. This trend is associated with an increase in childhood obesity, especially dangerous in combination with injuries that are more common in adolescents.
Recently, scientists from Washington University in St. Louis (USA) experiments were conducted on laboratory mice with a genetic predisposition to one of the variants of adipose tissue pathology (lipodystrophy), in which fat cells are practically absent. The animals were fed food with a very high fat content. But although the mice gained weight (with such pathology, this is due to muscle mass) and even showed signs of systemic inflammation characteristic of obesity, osteoarthritis did not develop in them. It did not appear even in the case of injury to the knee joint, usually causing rapid degeneration of cartilage.
But when the researchers implanted a small amount of adipose tissue into experimental mice, the animals began to show signs of osteoarthritis, although the body weight did not change much.
Article by Collins et al. Adipose tissue is a critical regulator of osteoarthritis published in PNAS.
Apparently, in the pathophysiology of osteoarthritis, the adipose tissue itself plays a decisive role, which produces a molecular factor unknown so far, which increases the susceptibility of cartilage tissue to degeneration. Scientists hope that once they can identify these compounds, they can be used as "targets" in the development of new therapeutic agents against this disease. And until then, in the arsenal of osteoarthritis prevention, there are only recommendations for a healthy diet and maintaining a normal body weight.
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