It has long been known that weight loss is important for those who are overweight, and often the patient can get help from a physiotherapist with exercises or forms of exercise that can be suitable and gentle so as not to make the symptoms of osteoarthritis feel worse.
Something that is debated and that we have written about before is the diet for people affected by osteoarthritis and whether different types of diets can be more or less beneficial for those with osteoarthritis. Here you can read an interview with a dietitian.
A group of researchers has studied whether a certain type of diet called VLED (very low energy diet) in combination with exercise yields better results in terms of weight loss and reduced symptoms than exercise in combination with a ‘normal’ diet.
The results show that the participant group that, over a period of six months, ate the diet with low energy content experienced better results at the end of the period. They had lost an average of 8.1% of their body weight compared to 1% in the control group. A larger part of the low-energy group also generally felt that their knees felt better.
Read more about the results and the study in its entirety in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which opens in a new tab when you click here.