Men with knee osteoarthritis should avoid one beverage at all costs

Five soft drinks per week is not what you’d call an out-of-control habit. Zero per week is best. But still, five isn’t excessive.

And yet, just five soft drinks per week might be enough to aggravate knee osteoarthritis in men.

In a new study, researchers followed more than 2,100 knee OA patients.

Dietary surveys revealed a clear link between soft drink consumption and greater severity of knee OA in men. For some reason, this link didn’t emerge among women. Just men. And only in men who drank five or more soft drinks per week.

At first, researchers thought obesity might be a factor in the soft drink connection. They wondered if carrying extra weight might make knee OA worse.

But that reasoning didn’t pan out. In fact, just the opposite. Researchers found that normal-weight and overweight men had the worst knee damage compared with obese men.

Writing about this study in Healthier Talk, Dr. Spreen points out that this surprising link is just that. A link. It doesn’t prove a cause.

Even so, men of any body type who have knee OA might be better off avoiding soft drinks.

In fact, let’s amend that to say just “men of any body type — period.” No matter what shape their knees are in. And women. Children. Teens. Dogs. Cats. Everyone is better off without soft drinks.

Sources:
“Is soda causing your knee troubles?” Dr. Allan Spreen, Healthier Talk, 12/5/12, healthiertalk.com