No more knees! America's junk food habit is increasing amount of knee replacement surgery

Soaring obesity rates in the U.S. and U.K. may lead to more health problems than just heart disease a new study suggests.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - There is an alarming rise of knee replacement surgery in people younger than 65 occurring in America, and the U.K. will soon follow, said the study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.

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High calorie, junk food diets are too blame on both sides of the Atlantic, and the study has raised concerns that the artificial knee implants won't be able to manage the strain of this excess weight.

Recent research from the U.S. shows that the amount of total knee replacements have been outpacing total hip replacements over the last 20 years, which coincides with the growing obesity epidemic.

"Because excess body weight appears to be more damaging to the knee than to the hip, the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity may explain the growing demands for knee replacements over hip replacements," said Dr. Peter Derman, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

In the U.K. there is an emerging trend of knee replacement requests for arthritic people in their 50s. A report in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism said research is needed to check if artificial joint implants would be wise for those in this age group, given the unknown durability of these implants.

Suggested estimates for these joints seem to be about 15 years in the older and often less active recipients.

"If rates of overweight and obesity continue to climb we should expect further acceleration in the number of knee replacements performed annually in the U.S. with a more modest increase in hip replacement volumes," Said Dr. Derman. "This knowledge can inform future policy decisions regarding health care funding and surgical workforce training as well as guide allocation of preventative health resources."

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