Knee osteoarthritis, a major cause of pain and disability, affects far more than the joint. Sufferers often live with poor sleep, low energy, fatigue and psychological distress on top of their pain.
New research from Dr Lynette Law, in the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre, has examined how diet interacts with sex differences in people with these debilitating symptoms.
“My research focuses on whether the inflammatory potential of what people eat is linked to how they feel and function day to day.”
While Dr Law’s research found that, overall, dietary inflammatory potential was not clearly tied to quality of life, sleep, fatigue or psychological distress in adults with knee osteoarthritis, it did uncover some interesting gender differences.
“In men, more pro-inflammatory diets were consistently linked with lower energy, even after accounting for age and body mass index. However, women did not show the same pattern.”
As the first sex-specific analyses of dietary inflammatory potential in knee osteoarthritis, Dr Law’s study suggests that diet-related inflammation may matter in more targeted and nuanced ways than previously assumed.
“Our findings suggest that lowering the inflammatory potential of the diet alone is unlikely to transform sleep, fatigue or mood for most people with knee osteoarthritis.”
“The association between a more pro-inflammatory diet and lower energy in men points to a possible sex-specific benefit of dietary change that deserves further study. It also reinforces the value of measuring multiple patient-centred outcomes when we test dietary interventions.”
