Association between lipid accumulation products and osteoarthritis: A cross-sectional study based on NHANES and CHARLS

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a long-term degenerative joint disorder marked by the gradual breakdown of articular cartilage. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated a close relationship between disturbances in lipid metabolism and the development of OA. Lipid accumulation product (LAP) is an assessment of abdominal fat accumulation calculated based on waist circumference and triglyceride levels. Previous research has demonstrated that higher LAP levels are positively associated with an increased prevalence of OA, but no study has included both Eastern and Western populations and systematically assessed the effects of multiple confounding factors. Data obtained from participants in the 2011 to 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycle and the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) survey were evaluated using multivariable logistic regression, subgroup analyses, and restricted cubic spline modeling. LAP was significantly and positively associated with OA in the NHANES fully adjusted model (1.31 [1.12, 1.54] <.001); the same relationship was shown in the CHARLS fully adjusted model (1.17 [1.09, 1.25] <.001). In NHANES, there was a significant interaction between gender and smoking status on the association between LAP and OA (P for interaction < .05). Both the NHANES and CHARLS populations demonstrated a stable inverted L-shaped nonlinear association between LAP and OA. LAP showed a consistently significant positive association with the prevalence of OA, and this finding was validated across different populations from the NHANES and CHARLS databases, indicating that lipid metabolic dysfunction may contribute to the pathophysiology of OA.