After adjustment for potential confounding factors, such as age, NSAID use, and common comorbidities, the increased mortality risk remained, with around a 15% increased risk of death for those with OA versus those without.
“We proposed six different mediators of this relationship,” Mr. Parmar said. These were depression, anxiety, low walking frequency, cognitive impairment, insomnia, and obesity. “The reason we chose these is because they can be targets for therapy in primary care.”
Three mediators significantly affected the relationship: low walking frequency, depression, and cognitive impairment; the respective hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were 1.12 (1.09-1.15), 1.11 (1.08-1.15), and 1.06 (1.03-1.09).
“This tells us that these could possibly be on the pathway between osteoarthritis and mortality, and this could provide further evidence that they could be used for targeted therapy of osteoarthritis,” Mr. Parmar suggested.