Here are five key points:
1. Kurt T. Hegmann, MD, a research associate professor of family and preventive medicine, along with other University colleagues conducted the study.
2. They studied 515 patients (262 males and 282 females) who underwent surgery for a meniscal tear between 1996 and 2000 at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, or at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah. Researchers compared these patients to a control group of 9,944 frequency-matched patients enrolled in the National Cancer Institute’s Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial.
3. Dr. Hegmann and his colleagues found that overweight patients, or patients with a BMI greater than 25, has a risk for suffering a meniscal tear at least three times higher than patients of normal weight.
4. Among the obese patients, or patients with a BMI greater than 40, males had a risk 15 times higher and females had a risk 25 times higher than patients of normal weight.
5. Based on these results, Dr. Hegmann estimated being overweight or obese could account for up to 450,000 of the 850,000 meniscus surgeries performed.
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