Association between Knee Osteoarthritis and Metabolic Syndrome in Non-Institutionalized Elderly Patients

Objective  This study aimed to analyze the association between knee osteoarthritis (OA) and metabolic syndrome (MS) in non-institutionalized elderly patients. Methods  A cross-sectional, randomized study, drawn from a probabilistic cluster study conducted with 416 elderly people from a Family Health Unit (USF, in the Portuguese acronym) of our municipality. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III), and OA according to the Kellgren-Lawrence (KL) scale (≥ 2). Results  For the statistical analysis, we performed an exploratory data analysis, Mann-Whitney or Chi-Squared tests and univariate and multivariate logistic regressions, with significance level of p  < 0.05; the concordance between the evaluators was verified through the Kappa coefficient. There was an association between OA and body mass index (BMI) ( p  = 0.0021) and between OA and waist circumference (WC) ( p  < 0.001; odds ratio [OR] = 3.524). There was no significant association between OA and the number of metabolic components nor with SM itself. Conclusion  We conclude that knee OA is associated with WC, regardless of weight, and that the increase in its measure reflects a greater chance of MS in non-institutionalized elderly patients.