How Common Is Arthritis Today?
It is thought that around 15% of the population have some form of long
term illness directly relating to arthritis, and about 1 in 5 people
will suffer from the symptoms of arthritis at one time or another.
Doctors around the world are seeing more people with pain and
discomfort of the joints and are finding more often than not that they
are directly related to some form of arthritis. As the population of
countries such as the US and UK are getting more obese, the strain on
people's bodies is getting greater and symptoms of arthritis in the
knees, hips and spine are becoming more and more common. It is believed
that arthritis is the second most common cause of time spent off work
and every year tens of thousands of joint replacement operations take
place, specifically the hips and knees. The cost of treating people
with arthritis is up in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year,
and worldwide it is a multi billion dollar industry.