Preventing Incident Knee Osteoarthritis: The Osteoarthritis Prevention Study (TOPS)

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of disability among older adults and we have neither valid, primary preventive measures nor a cure (1). We address OA disease prevention because it is potentially our most important weapon to reduce OA incidence and because disease prevention is superior to curing disease . The objectives of this proposed trial are (a) to establish intensive diet and exercise as a disease prevention model by demonstrating superiority in symptomatic, structural, and mechanistic outcomes compared to control and (b) to determine the cost effectiveness of this non-pharmacologic intervention in preventing the onset of knee OA in high risk individuals. We define high risk for knee OA as adults age= 50 years, no or infrequent knee pain ? pain < 15 days/month, obese (BMI = 30 kg/m2), and female sex.

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