Serum urate and the risk of incident osteoarthritis: A prospective cohort study
Main finding · Incident knee OAResult — go to the resultHazard ratio 1.08 95% CI 1.06–1.10Authors' conclusion
Higher serum urate was associated with an increased risk of OA across knee, hip, and hand joints. Inflammatory and cartilage metabolic pathways may partly mediate this relationship.
Study context
- Population
- UK Biobank participants free of knee, hip, and hand osteoarthritis (OA) at baseline with available serum urate measurements (mean age 56 years, 55% women)
- Exposure
- Per 1 standard deviation increase in serum urate
- Outcome
- Incident knee OA
- Follow-up
- Median 14 years
Methodological detailspopulation-based, Cox proportional hazards models, linear and non-linear associations, mediation analysis
- Population-based
- Cox proportional hazards models
- Linear and non-linear associations
- Mediation analysis
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Hazard ratio
1.08
95% CI 1.06–1.10
Per 1 standard deviation increase serum urate
HR 1.08 (95% CI 1.06–1.10)
Per 1 standard deviation increase serum urate, as printed
- Participants who developed knee OA
- 29,686 (6.88%)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | HR (95% CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Incident hip OA · median follow-up of 14 yearsHigher risk of incident OA | 1.05 (1.03–1.07) | |
| Incident hand OA · median follow-up of 14 yearsHigher risk of incident OA | 1.04 (1.01–1.07) | |
| 0.512Hazard ratio (log scale) |
- Incident hip OA — Participants who developed hip OA
- 19,040 (4.41%)
- Incident hand OA — Participants who developed hand OA
- 11,696 (2.76%)
Incident hip OA · median follow-up of 14 years
- Non-linear association not observed for hip OA
Incident hand OA · median follow-up of 14 years
- Non-linear association not observed for hand OA
Mediation of the serum urate–OA relationships
- Proportion of mediation by inflammatory biomarkers
- 4.21%-15.14%
- Proportion of mediation by cartilage metabolism biomarkers
- 3.86%-16.33%
- Partially mediated
Parts of this Brief are withheld: the automatic checks could not confirm them against the abstract.
Original publication
Serum urate and the risk of incident osteoarthritis: A prospective cohort study. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. Published 2 November 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →