Metabolic Factors in Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis – A Review of Clinical Data

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to review the literature linking metabolic factors to Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis (DISH), in order to assess associations between growth factors and DISH. METHOD: We identified studies in our personal database and PubMed using the following keywords in various combinations: "diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis", "ankylosing hyperostosis", "Forestier's disease", "diabetes", "insulin", "obesity", "metabolic", "growth factors", "adipokines", "glucose tolerance" and "chondrocytes". RESULTS: We were not able to do a systematic review due to variability in methodology of studies. We found positive associations between obesity (especially abdominal obesity), Type 2 diabetes mellitus, glucose intolerance, hyperinsulinemia and DISH. CONCLUSION: Current research indicates that certain metabolic factors associate with DISH. More precise studies deriving from these findings on these and other newly identified bone-growth factors are needed.