Will Losing Weight Help My Knee Pain

February 20, 2022

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Knee Arthritis Improvements Were Substantial With Weight Loss

“Will Losing Weight Fix My KNEE PAIN?”

The study tracked 240 overweight and obese adults who had knee pain and documented osteoarthritis. Those who lost at least 10 percent benefitted in a number of ways: They reported significantly less pain, had better knee function, were able to walk farther in a six-minute test, and had decreased inflammation and bone-on-bone compression.

The improvements exhibited what researchers call a dose response, which means the more people lost the better they did.

Weight Management Not A Joint Replacement Knee Replacement Is Not An Easy Way To Weight Lossresearch: Knee Replacement Does Not Help Many People Lose Weight

Many patients are under the assumption that the quickest way to attack their obesity problem is to get a knee replacement. The thinking is that if they eliminate their knee pain they will be able to exercise and lose weight. Surgeons are being told to tell patients that is not true for many obese patients.

Many patients contact us with knee problems. They tell a story that probably sounds a lot like yours:

Body Weight Affects Joint Inflammation

Fat cells release substances that promote body-wide inflammation. If youre overweight, youll have more of those unwanted chemicals circulating through your body. The inflammation triggered by fat cells aggravates the joint inflammation already caused by rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

People who are overweight or obese and who also have rheumatoid arthritis experience more joint pain than patients with a normal weight. However, weight loss can lower inflammation, improve joint function, and help reduce your joint pain.

If youre overweight and you struggle with knee pain, or pain in any of your weight-bearing joints, we can treat the problem in your joint and relieve your pain, while also recommending gentle exercises that will help you lose weight without further aggravating your joints.

To get started on the road to joint health, call Pennsylvania Orthopedic Associates, or schedule an appointment online.

How To Lessen The Burden

However, losing even a small amount of weight can make a big difference when it comes to joint pain and inflammation.

A study published in Arthritis & Rheumatism found that just one pound of weight loss resulted in four pounds of pressure being removed from the knee. Similarly, other studies have concluded that a pound of weight loss can remove six pounds of pressure off the hips. A 2010 study indicated that weight loss can lessen inflammation of the joints.

So if youre experiencing joint pain, dont just assume its because of your age it could actually be your weight. Talk to your doctor about building a weight loss plan to help you accomplish your goals.

New Mexico Orthopaedics is a multi-disciplinary orthopaedic clinic located in Albuquerque New Mexico. We have multiple physical therapy clinics located throughout the Albuquerque metro area.

New Mexico Orthopaedics offers a full spectrum of services related to orthopaedic care and our expertise ranges from acute conditions such as sports injuries and fractures to prolonged, chronic care diagnoses, including total joint replacement and spinal disorders.

Because our team of highly-trained physicians specialize in various aspects of the musculoskeletal system, our practice has the capacity to treat any orthopaedic condition, and offer related support services, such as physical therapy, WorkLink and much more.

If you need orthopedic care in Albuquerque New Mexico contact New Mexico Orthopaedics at 505-724-4300.

The Best Tactics For Losing Weight

Increasing physical activity has many health benefits and can help you shed weight. But stepping up your exercise alone is rarely enough to help you lose weight. Every pound you’d like to shed represents roughly 3,500 calories. So if you’re hoping to lose half a pound to one pound a week, you need to knock off 250 to 500 calories a day. A good way to start is to try to burn 125 calories through exercise and eat 125 fewer calories each day.

Don’t forget that the math works both ways: indulging in an extra 100 calories a day without burning them off can leave you 10 pounds heavier at the end of a year! Over time, routine treats like a scoop or two of ice cream, a calorie-packed coffee drink, or visits to the cookie or candy jar can tip the scales in the wrong direction.

For more on developing and mastering joint pain relief workout, read The Joint Pain Relief Workout, a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School.

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Losing Weight With Knee Pain

While the benefits of weight loss can help relieve knee pain, doing so may be more difficult if you have discomfort. Knee pain can make it hard to participate in the physical activity thats key to successful, long-term weight loss.

Seek medical advice to find an appropriate weight loss program for your condition. Follow these tips to get started:

Start a walking program, even if its just a few minutes a day
Work on strength training to build muscle
Look for ways to incorporate movement into daily life
Reduce portion sizes at meals and snacks
Keep vegetables, fruits, and healthy snacks on hand

Learn more about the impact of weight and other risk factors for knee pain. Schedule an appointment at Coastal Empire Orthopedics online or call our office for a consultation.

The Role Of Fat Cells In Inflammation

Medical professionals used to think that fat cells just sat there keeping us warm over the winter months. It turns out that these cells also play a role in maintaining some of our bodies normal processes including inflammation!

They are responsible for producing up to one third of some of the chemicals that begin inflammation. So, as we put on weight, there are more fat cells, which then secrete more of this chemical creating more inflammation.

Overweight people who sustain a knee injury may have a heightened local inflammatory response due to the chronic inflammation already circulating their body. This will cause two things to happen:

There will be more pain in the knee as the inflammatory response will be heightened.

These people are less likely to exercise due to the pain they are experiencing so they may even put on weight which increases inflammation.

Can you see the cycle beginning to happen? The real question is how do we break this cycle apart? The answer is to progressively load the joint with stimulus that will encourage healing and to lose weight!

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Weight Reduction Strategies Could Potentially Reduce The Need For Knee Replacement Surgery By 31% Among Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis

The simple summary of all the research listed above is this:

Doctors at Oxford University publishing in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatology found that overweight patients are at more than 40% greater risk and obese patients are at more than a 100% increased risk of knee replacement surgery compared to patients with normal weight. Weight reduction strategies could potentially reduce the need for knee replacement surgery by 31% among patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Obesity And Anterior Knee Pain

How your weight affects knee pain

Overview:

Anterior knee pain is often a burden for those experiencing chronic knee pain. It is quite prominent at any age and may be worse and more common in the overweight population. It may be the result of inactivity, and/or muscle weakness. Obesity complicates this condition as the structures of the anterior knee including the patella experience increased forces up to five times our body weight. By focusing on muscle strengthening and weight loss, anterior knee pain can often be improved through non-surgical measures. Anterior knee pain in the absence of advanced arthritis is rarely improved with surgery .

Symptoms:

Knee pain over the front of the knee during activity, after activity,
Increased pain when resuming activity after sitting for long durations
Swelling, feelings of stiffness or decreased range of motion
Feelings of instability, usually when walking
Pain with bending of the knee, going up and down stairs

Treatments:

Depending on your history and physical exam, we will generally recommend an x-ray in the standing position to assess the amount of arthritis in your knee when you are putting weight on your joint. As long as there is no emergent orthopedic intervention needed we will generally recommend the following:

Muscle strengthening:

Weight loss:

Often weight loss can be difficult when it hurts to exercise. Exercising in the pool takes the pressure off your joints and still allows your muscles to become stronger.

Surgical Options:

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Experience Relief From Your Sciatica Pain Today

You dont have to suffer through your sciatica pain. If youre overweight and experience sciatica pain, Dr. Jones can help formulate a plan to help you both lose weight and treat your sciatica. If youre located in the Houston, Pearland, or Lake Jackson, Texas, area, start your healing process today by calling us or scheduling an appointment online with our convenient booking tool.

How Your Weight Affects Inflammation

Cytokine levels are already high when you have inflammatory arthritis obesity takes it up a notch. In fact, a research review of 329 studies found that obesity can lead to more active and severe rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.

Extra weight also places increased pressure and stress on the joints, which can worsen the pain and stiffness associated with inflammatory arthritis, says Dr. Andrews. Plus, obesity may also impact how well your meds work. One study published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research showed regardless of the type of initial treatment, people with RA who were overweight or obese were significantly less likely to achieve sustained remission, compared to those with a healthy BMI.

The basics to losing weight apply to everyone, whether you have arthritis or not: Eat a variety of fruits and veggies and choose whole grains, low-fat dairy, and lean protein. Watch your portions, have regular, balanced meals, and of course, exercise more.

One Brenda keeps her advice simple and to the point: Eat whole fresh foods! Get rid of the processed crap!

Here are 12 more tips to help you shed unwanted pounds and help your joints feel better:

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Less Weight Less Stress

Maintaining an ideal body weight is important, and if overweight, losing as little as 10 pounds can decrease the progression of your knee osteoarthritis by 50 percent, according to a published study, says rheumatologist Elaine Husni, MD, MPH, director of Cleveland Clinics Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Treatment Center. This is clearly a modifiable risk factor.

Studies consistently show that overweight people have higher rates of osteoarthritis than people who arent overweight. One study found that those who are obese are four to five times more likely to get arthritis in their knees.

If you have weight-induced joint pain, losing pounds and taking stress off your joints may ease your symptoms. While your body cant reverse arthritis or regrow cartilage, losing weight can help arthritic joints feel better and prevent further excess damage.

The Impact Of Weight On Your Knees

Even if excess weight isnt the source of your knee pain, being overweight or obese can aggravate any condition causing this type of discomfort. The load on your knee joints equals four times your body weight. So, if you weigh 150 pounds, your knees support 600 pounds of force when you stand or walk. The pressure can increase with actions such as walking up steps, climbing an incline, or squatting to pick up something from the floor

The benefit of weight loss works along the same scale. Thats why losing even 10 pounds can make a measurable difference. Being 10 pounds lighter reduces the load on your knees by 40 pounds.

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Does Weight Affect Knee Pain

Knee pain makes movement from heavy exercise to simply walking up stairs a chore. And once the joint starts to wear down from chronic wear and tear, you expect pain even as you are sitting still, driving, or laying in bed. Theres no doubt that being overweight or obese increases your risk for many health problems, including diabetes and heart disease, but you might not realize that even a few extra pounds can directly affect your knee pain. Heres what you need to know about your weight and knee pain.

The Benefits Of Weight Loss And Diet

Weight loss will help to reduce this chronic inflammation, and in osteoarthritis it has been proven that even as little as 5% weight loss can significantly decrease disability! Additionally, the more weight you lose, the more pain relief you can have. But how can we lose weight with a sore knee that hurts with exercise?

The first thing to look at, is your diet. Now this is not my field of expertise, but to effectively lose weight you need to eat less. This will create a calorie or energy deficit, meaning you are eating less than your energy expenditure . For individual and tailored advice, I can recommend a dietician by the name of Claudia Cramer who is excellent at what she does.

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Why Does My Knee Hurt

Knee pain is one of the most common complications of being overweight or obese. If youre among the millions of people who experience chronic knee pain, even a small weight loss can help reduce pain and lower the risk of osteoarthritis .

According to a 2011 report from the Institute of Medicine , of the roughly 100 million American adults who experience common chronic pain, nearly 20 percent, or 20 million people, have knee pain. This is second only to the number of people with lower back pain.

More than two-thirds of people in the United States are either overweight or obese .

Those extra pounds increase the stress on your knees. That stress can cause chronic pain and lead to other complications such as OA.

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This Study Suggests That To Help Obese Patients Lose Weight After Knee Replacement They Need A Team To Help Them Adhere To A Diet

Will losing weight reduce hip, back, and knee pain?

Practitioners treating knee replacement patients would be aided by an understanding of patients perceived social and environmental factors that impede or facilitate surgical progress. Particularly for those directly interacting with patients, like nurses, physiotherapists, or other professionals, support from health professionals appears to be a strong facilitator of adherence to diet and increased activity.

This study suggests that to help obese patients lose weight after knee replacement, they need a team to help them adhere to a diet.

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The Hard Truth: Some Will Lose Weight Because They Want To Some Will Not Because They Do Not Want To

Here is a research paper that will probably state the obvious, especially if you are the adult child of a parent who has bad knees and a big belly or the spouse of one.

This comes from August 2020 and was published in the journal BioMed Central Musculoskeletal Disorders . Here are the learning points:

Knee osteoarthritis affects mostly older adults and its primary risk factor is obesity.
This study looked to understand weight-control strategies, facilitators of and barriers toward weight control in older adults with knee osteoarthritis who preferred not to undergo physician-recommended total knee replacement.

In other words, we have older people with knee osteoarthritis who have been recommended for a knee replacement. They chose not to get a knee replacement. Yet weight is a concern. What are these people thinking? That is what the researchers wanted to know.

Study starts with 118 patients
Only 1 in 4 patients, 25.4% had body weight in the normal range.
More than half 55.9% reported having controlled their weight.
Controlling weight means that they were engaged in a program to obviously, control their weight. Their most common weight-control strategies were:
Diet
Diet and exercise together

Their weight control program did well when the patient was motivated to have good health, wanting to improve walking or movement, perceiving that they had gained weight, wanting to look good, and advice from healthcare providers.

The people who had difficulties with weight control:

# Create Knee Stability

As I mentioned in the previous section, your knee joint is a hinge, meaning that it opens in one direction only. However, it is also classified as a slave joint, because it operates down the kinetic chain from your hip, which, as a ball-and-socket joint, has much great range of motion.

Simply put, your hip dictates much of the movement your knee faces. Strong hips allow your knee to perform its intended function only , while weak hips can cause your knee to suffer from lateral movement that its not built to sustain.

Hip strength comes from your Gluteal muscle groups, primarily your Gluteus Maximus and Gluteus Medius. A Pointing Dog exercise is a great way to activate your glute max, as well as to improve your knee extension for better ROM:

Next, a lying leg raise can be used to squarely target your glute meds:

Remember, the stronger your glutes, the more stable your knees will become. Dont skip these exercises in favour of simply focusing on the traditional knee-related exercises like squats and deadlifts.

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Joint Cartilage Suffers From Excess Weight

The part of each joint thats most affected by excess body weight is articular cartilage. Articular cartilage is a firm, rubbery tissue that covers the ends of the bones inside the joint, creating a smooth surface that allows the bones to move without friction or rubbing bone against bone.

Articular cartilage has another essential job: It absorbs shock and passes the pressure on to the bone. This ability to transfer pressure allows the structures within the joint to share the weight of your body, preventing one part from sustaining more force than it can tolerate.

Since articular cartilage bears the burden of your body weight, its easily damaged by overweight and obesity. The cartilage inside your joints, especially your knees, is already prone to breaking down because of overuse, injury, or daily wear-and-tear over the years.

Any existing cartilage degeneration starts to break down more quickly as you gain weight. The overall result is this: Your risk of developing knee osteoarthritis is at least four to five times higher when youre overweight.

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