Prevalence of Obesity in Rheumatologic Diseases and Its Relationship with Disease Activity

Abstract

Objective: Obesity is a common health problem and a complex disease that is defined as overly fat deposition in adipotic tissue. Studies conducted in our country (Turkey) have reported prevalence of obesity between 12 and 22 percent. Obesity has been shown to be associated with several rheumatic diseases and inflammation. The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of obesity in rheumatologic diseases, and possible relationships between disease activity and accompanying obesity. Method: A total of 1064 newly patients diagnosed with osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), fibromyalgia (FM), gout, Behçet’s disease (BD), vasculitis, polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), Sjögren’s syndrome (SS), Familial Mediterranean fever, polymyositis, and systemic sclerosis (SSc) were included in the study. Age, gender, disease activity scores, and laboratory and clinical findings were all recorded. Results: Obesity incidences were found to be 4.5% in RA, 3.2% in SLE, 1.6% in AS, 40.1% in OA, 11.2% in FM, 19.7% in gout, 1.8% in BD, 15% in vasculitis, 13.7% in PMR, 8% in SS, and 8.3% in SSc. Obesity and OA were revealed to have a statistically significant association. Disease activity scores were statistically significantly higher in obese FM patients compared to non-obese patients (p<0.001). We found a low rate of obesity in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, and we could not find a relationship between obesity and disease activity. Conclusion: While recent studies have associated obesity with inflammation, interestingly, in our study, obesity was found to be related to OA and FM, but was not associated with inflammatory rheumatic diseases. The relationship with OA may be explained by mechanical factors, but more comprehensive studies are needed on the relationship with obesity and inflammatory rheumatic diseases.