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LOS ANGELES — Two in every nine Americans, a total of 49.9 million adults, now suffer from doctor-diagnosed arthritis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
The number is growing by about 1 million per year and is expected to reach 67 million by 2030, the agency reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The driving factor for the rise in arthritis patients appears to be obesity, the researchers said. Among those who are obese, one in three women and one in four men have been diagnosed with the disorder, roughly double the proportion among those whose weight is normal.
