The number of osteoarthritis is increasing dramatically

Obesity is probably the most important risk factor that can be influenced, according to a study published in the “Lancet Rheumatology”. As part of the publication series on the development, distribution and importance of various diseases for the world’s population, the international research team has analyzed the information from a total of 204 countries on the subject of osteoarthritis and has now published it. For people over the age of 70, joint wear and tear is already the seventh most common cause of constant disease burden.

“Worldwide, about 595 million people suffered from osteoarthritis in 2020, which was 7.6 percent of the world’s population and represented an increase of 132.2 percent compared to. Compared to 2020, the number of cases in 2050 is expected to increase by 74.9 percent for osteoarthritis of the knee, by 48.6 percent for diseases of the finger joints, by 78.6 percent for osteoarthritis of the hip and by 95.1 percent for other forms of osteoarthritis. illness, the writing team noted. In 1990, for every 100,000 people, 233 years of life were ‘lost’ due to disability due to osteoarthritis; in 2020 it was already 250 years per 100,000.

The incidence of the diseases varies between regions of the world. Standardized by age, it affects at least 5.5 percent of people in all parts of the world. The number of people affected depends strongly on the age group: in 2020, 14.8 percent of people over the age of 30 worldwide had osteoarthritis, and among workers aged 30 to 60, this was 3.5 percent.

Austria average
According to the data, nearly 700,000 people in Austria have osteoarthritis of the knee. The frequency roughly corresponds to that in Western Europe. About 125,000 people suffer from osteoarthritis of the hip. Here, too, Austria is within the Western European average.