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Risks of Arthritis
Age
An important risk, which baby boomers may have trouble facing, is age. Arthritis often begins soon after age 40, after years of wear and tear on your joints.
Gender
In particular, women are at higher risk of many forms of arthritis than men. Here are the facts:
- Osteoarthritis affects 21 million Americans, including 16 million women.
- Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and fibromyalgia are conditions that occur much more often in women than in men, although men have a higher risk of osteoarthritis than women until age 55. After 55, women are more commonly affected.
- Researchers believe that female hormones may play some role in arthritis because women are affected much more frequently than men. Hormones also appear to affect arthritis symptoms in certain cases. For instance, women frequently experience remission of RA symptoms during pregnancy, and lupus sometimes flares during pregnancy.
Weight
In addition to age and sex, other factors play a role in arthritis risk. People who are more than 10 pounds overweight have a higher risk for arthritis, especially in weight-bearing joints like the knees. Increased weight puts significantly more pressure on joints, causing cartilage (the cushioning layer between bones in a joint) to break down faster than usual.
Injury
A past severe knee injury, which also damages cartilage and leads to quicker breakdown, adds to arthritis risk.
Ethnicity
Ethnic background affects the relative risk of arthritis in many people too. Here are the facts:
- Lupus occurs three to four times more often in African Americans than in Caucasians.
- The genetic marker for rheumatoid arthritis is found in 25 percent of Caucasians but in only 10 percent of African Americans, perhaps partially explaining why fewer blacks than whites report having RA.
- African Americans are at higher risk for a condition known as sarcoidosis.
- Native American groups are at higher risk for other conditions: A study found that Choctaws in Oklahoma had an incidence of scleroderma that was 20 times higher than that of the general population.
- Eskimos and Native Americans have been found to carry the genetic marker for ankylosing spondylitis twice as often as Caucasians, and their incidence of the disease is higher as well.
