Body Mass Index Differentially Moderates Heritability of Total Joint Replacement Due to Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis

Background: Osteoarthritis and obesity are diseases with high prevalence, and they share common etiologies. We investigated the sex-specific genetic susceptibility to hip and knee osteoarthritis necessitating total joint replacement (TJR), and how body mass index (BMI) moderated the heritability of these osteoarthritis phenotypes.

Methods: We linked 29,893 twin pairs with information on BMI in the Swedish Twin Registry with the Swedish National Patient Register to identify twins who underwent primary TJR of the hip or knee combined with a concomitant diagnosis of primary osteoarthritis of these joints. Structural equation modeling was used to calculate the heritability of hip and knee osteoarthritis treated with TJR, with estimates adjusted for the first available BMI, birth year, and sex. We also investigated how heritability varied with BMI treated as a continuous variable.

Results: Similar heritability estimates for hip replacement (0.65 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.59 to 0.70]) and knee replacement (0.57 [95% CI, 0.50 to 0.64]) were found. Heritability decreased with higher BMI in both sexes for hip replacement and in men for knee replacement. In contrast, heritability for knee replacement increased with higher BMI in women; the estimate was 0.37 (90% likelihood interval [LI], 0.25 to 0.49) for a BMI of 20 kg/m2 and 0.87 (90% LI, 0.68 to 0.94) for a BMI of 35 kg/m2.

Conclusions: In our population, heritability explained, on average, about half of the susceptibility to undergo primary TJR of the hip or knee with the indication of primary osteoarthritis, but it varied with BMI and sex. We demonstrated substantial heritability for knee replacement in obese women.

Level of Evidence: Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.