Arthritis Awareness Month: Activity and Weight Loss Help

May is National Arthritis Awareness Month.

The numbers

• 54 million U.S. adults have doctor-diagnosed arthritis — projected to reach 78 million by 2040.
• About two thirds of adults with arthritis have overweight or obesity.
• Only 36% meet the recommended aerobic physical activity guidelines.

What helps

Physical activity and a healthy weight help manage arthritis:

• activity can reduce pain, improve function and mood, and delay disability;
• even small amounts of weight loss significantly reduce pressure on the joints.

The provider's role

Adults with overweight or obesity who get weight-loss counseling from a health care provider are about four times as likely to try to lose weight as those who don't. Providers can counsel patients with arthritis to be physically active, lose weight if they need to, and take self-management education. A report in the same MMWR issue found that the share of providers counseling arthritis patients about weight loss rose significantly from 2002 to 2014.

More: managing arthritis.

Sources

Based on "National Arthritis Awareness Month — May 2018," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing Barbour and others, Rose and others, and Guglielmo and others; a work of the United States government in the public domain.