Study on Diet and Exercise Impact on Knee Pain

A new study published in the Journal of American Medical Association suggests that diet and exercise contrasted with an attention control resulted in a statistically significant but minor difference in knee pain over 18 months among patients with osteoarthritis of the knee and excess body weight or obesity.

Several weight loss and exercise regimens that have shown promise in studies conducted in academic settings have not been examined in real-world situations. In order to ascertain whether a diet and exercise intervention tailored to community settings led to a statistically meaningful reduction in pain after an 18-month follow-up, Stephen Messier and colleagues undertook this study.

In both urban and rural North Carolina counties, a community-based, assessor-blinded, randomized clinical study was conducted. Patients were overweight or obese (body mass index 27) with knee osteoarthritis who were 50 years of age or older. Enrollment (N = 823) took place from May 2016 through August 2019, and follow-up was completed in April 2021. For a period of 18 months, patients were randomized to either a diet and exercise intervention (n = 414) or an attention control (n = 409) group. The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) knee pain score between-group difference during an 18-month period was the primary outcome.

Key Findings

• 658 (80.3%) of the 823 randomly assigned patients finished the experiment.
• The adjusted mean WOMAC pain score at 18-month follow-up was 5.0 in the diet and exercise group (n = 329) versus 5.5 in the attention control group (n = 316).
• Of the seven secondary outcomes, the intervention group significantly outperformed the control group in 5 of them.
• In the diet and exercise group and the attention control group, respectively, the mean change in unadjusted 18-month body weight for patients with available data was 7.7 kg (8%) and 1.7 kg (2%) respectively.
• 169 significant adverse events occurred, but none were unquestionably linked to the research.

Reference

Messier, S. P., Beavers, D. P., Queen, K., Mihalko, S. L., Miller, G. D., Losina, E., Katz, J. N., Loeser, R. F., DeVita, P., Hunter, D. J., Newman, J. J., Quandt, S. A., Lyles, M. F., Jordan, J. M., & Callahan, L. F. (2022). Effect of Diet and Exercise on Knee Pain in Patients With Osteoarthritis and Overweight or Obesity. In JAMA (Vol. 328, Issue 22, p. 2242). American Medical Association (AMA). https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2022.21893