Advances in the association of metabolic syndrome with incidence and development of osteoarthritis / 中华骨科杂志

ABSTRACT

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, and is the major cause of pain and chronic disability worldwide, causing enormous social and economic burden.Once OA was considered as a 'wear-and-tear' condition and obesity is considered to be one of the most powerful predisposing factors of OA in the weight-bearing joints.However, studies have also linked obesity to OA in non-weightbearing areas, suggesting systemic effects exerted by metabolic factors other than simple local biomechanics perhaps play a role in the high prevalence of osteoarthritis in obese population.Recent studies have shown that systemic metabolic abnormalities, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, lipid metabolism disorders, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, play an important role in OA pathological process.Metabolic diseases promote the incidence and development of OA through a variety of ways, inducing causing low-grade systemic inflammation, increasing release of adipokines, anabolic cytokines and inflammatory mediators, leading to glucose and lipid metabolism disorders of chondrocytes, upregulating of cartilage extracellular matrix degrading enzymes, raising oxidative stress injury, increasing apoptosis of articular chondrocytes and reducing the cartilage and subchondral bone nutrition supply.These metabolic changes ultimately accelerate the damage of cartilage and promote the incidence and development of OA.Further research on OA and metabolic diseases, has the potential to provide new ideas and methods for the prevention and treatment of OA.