Introduction: 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 prevalences 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 the accompanying obesity.
Methods: A total of 1064 newly diagnosed patients were included in the study; they included 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 (FMF), polymyositis, and systemic sclerosis(SSc). Age, gender, and 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 osteoarthritis 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
Key words: obesity, rheumatological diseases, disease activity
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