The aim of this study was to estimate the impact of physical work load, sports, and overweight on the incidence of coxarthrosis.
A case-referent study was made of 239 male recipients of a hip prosthesis and 302 men randomly selected from the general population. Information was obtained by means of an interview and questionnaire. Exposures to physical work load and sports were measured as the cumulative number of hours of exposure up to 49 years of age. Overweight was measured as the estimated body mass index at 30 or 40 years of age.
The etiologic fraction related to the three risk factors was 40% for physical work load, 55% for sports, and 15% for overweight. Various measures of physical work load were considered, but they all proved to be correlated.
Approximately 80% of the idiopathic coxarthrosis was explained by the presence of the three risk factors.