....So, just as Type 2 diabetes once used to be unheard of in people under 40 but is now being diagnosed in kids as young as 10, OA of the large joints once used to be a very rare occurrence in people who were not yet seniors, but (for reasons to be discussed below), OA (and the consequent hip and knee replacement surgery for severe OA) is now commonplace in people still decades away from retiring.
....So what is OA, and why are people now getting it at much younger ages?
....The short answer to the first question is that OA, which is by far the most common form of arthritis in Canada, is a degenerative arthritis caused by the breakdown and loss of cartilage in a joint, which brings up the obvious follow-up question: what is cartilage?
....Cartilage in a joint (cartilage is found all over the body and differs in function depending on where it’s located) is that not-hard, not-soft tissue that cushions the internal surfaces of a joint. And joints need all the cushioning they can get, given the pounding they take on a regular basis. But when a joint is over-worked or over-stressed, or for some joints, just with the passage of time and regular use, the cartilage cushion crumbles, which in turn allows the bones in the joint to grate on each other, and bingo, you have OA.
....Many factors increase the risk of OA in a specific joint, starting with genes, of course, which partially helps explain why lots of people who stress a joint unduly do not develop OA while others develop OA with even minimal stress. Congenital abnormalities to joints also increase the risk, as does the old standby of age, so that if you live long enough, there’s a good chance you will develop OA in at least one joint.
....Those (genes, age, congenital abnormalities) are the uncontrollable risk factors for OA. As for controllable factors that increase the risk for OA, in larger joints, such as the knees and hips, perhaps the most important one is excess weight, which is, of course, partly why baby boom-boomers are getting OA at much younger ages than their parents and especially their grandparents did, since as anyone with eyes can see, my generation has ballooned big-time without any sign that this trend is bottoming out, so to speak.
....But clearly, there must be more that’s involved in many cases of OA because if we take Gerry as a prime example, the thing about Gerry is that he isn’t old and he isn’t fat.
....No, Gerry has another explanation for the OA in his hips. You see, Gerry is a very long-time runner (I think he was a stand-in for Forrest Gump), and like so many boomer runners, he runs, or more accurately, he used to |
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