Arthritis Prevalence Among Pre-Diabetics

Study: Nearly one-third of adults with pre-diabetes also have arthritis

Arthritis Prevalence Among Pre-Diabetics – Between 2009 and 2014, nearly one-third of adults in the United States with pre-diabetes also had arthritis, according to an analysis presented at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting.

“This may impact physical activity recommended to prevent diabetes because of arthritis-specific barriers,” Kamil E. Barbour, PhD, in the Arthritis Program at the CDC, said during his presentation.

Defining Pre-Diabetes

To determine the prevalence of arthritis among patients with pre-diabetes, Barbour and colleagues used the 2009 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which provides an estimate of the non-institutionalized U.S. population. The researchers limited their analysis to adults who were at least 20 years old and who had a fasting plasma glucose (fpg) measurement. Unweighted sample sizes were 2,787 in 2009 and 2010; 2,471 in 2011 and 2012; and 2,574 in 2013 and 2014.

Researchers defined pre-diabetes as a glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level between 5.7% and 6.5% or an fpg level between 100 mg/dL and 125 mg/dL. They defined diabetes as an HbA1c level of at least 6.5% or fpg level of at least 126 mg/dL or a response to the questionnaire indicating participants were diagnosed with diabetes or sugar diabetes by a health care professional.

Defining Arthritis

They also defined arthritis as a response to the questionnaire indicating participants were diagnosed with arthritis by a health care professional. Researchers standardized estimates to the projected 2000 U.S. population and evaluated pairwise comparisons*.

*Pairwise comparison generally is any process of comparing entities in pairs to judge which of each entity is preferred, or has a greater amount of some quantitative property, or whether or not the two entities are identical.

Arthritis Significantly Higher in Pre-Diabetics

Between 2009 and 2014, 30% of adults with pre-diabetes also had arthritis, for a total of 27.9 million. The age-standardized prevalence of arthritis among adults with pre-diabetes (25.5%) was significantly higher than those without pre-diabetes (21.6%) and similar to those with diabetes (28.6%). Among adults with pre-diabetes, investigators found the highest age-standardized prevalence of arthritis for participants aged at least 65 years, who are women or who had less than a college degree.