The number one cause of adult disability in the US is knee osteoarthritis, recent data indicate. According to Stefan Coombs, an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins, there are several factors to consider when trying to determine who’s at risk.
Coombs: Risk factors can be broken down into non modifiable risk factors, meaning you can't change or control them as well as modifiable risk factors, which we have the ability to change or control. Some non modifiable risk factors include age, race, genetic predisposition. Female sex is also a non modifiable risk factor. Obesity is by far the greatest modifiable risk factor. Muscle weakness is another modifiable risk factor as the quadriceps muscle acts as a shock absorber for both the knee joint itself and the patella.  :33
Coombs says the take home is to keep those factors you can control under control, and delay or avoid the development of knee osteoarthritis. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.