Beer and wine consumption and risk of knee or hip osteoarthritis: a case control study

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and knee or hip osteoarthritis (OA). METHODS: We conducted a case-control study of Caucasian men and women aged 45 to 86 years of age from Nottingham, UK. Cases had clinically severe symptoms and radiographic knee or hip OA; controls had no symptoms and no radiographic knee or hip OA. Exposure information was sought using interview-based questionnaires and a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire to assess beverage consumption at ages 21 to 50 years. Odds ratios (ORs), adjusted ORs (aORs), 95% confidence intervals (CI) and P values were estimated using logistic regression models. RESULTS: A total of 1,001 knee OA, 993 hip OA and 933 control participants were included in the study. Increasing beer consumption was associated with an increasing risk of OA (P for trend/=7 glasses of wine per week was 0.55 (95% CI 0.34 to 0.87) and 0.48 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.80), respectively. No association was identified between non-alcoholic beverages and knee or hip OA. CONCLUSIONS: Beer consumption appears to be a risk factor for knee and hip OA whereas consumption of wine has a negative association with knee OA. The mechanism behind these findings is speculative but warrants further study.