Alvarez C, Cleveland RJ, Schwartz TA, et al. - In order to find out the correlation of three common chronic conditions (obesity, diabetes mellitus [DM], and cardiovascular disease [CVD]) with transitions among states of hip osteoarthritis (HOA), researchers conducted a longitudinal analysis utilizing data from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project (JoCo OA, n = 3857), a community-based study in North Carolina, USA, with 18.4 ± 1.5 years of follow-up. They applied Markov multi-state models to calculate adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals to describe the relationships between the conditions and HOA states. In individuals, they found that comorbid chronic conditions are common with OA, and these conditions have a significant effect on the persistence and progression of HOA. In addition, both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic, OA management decisions, should involve considerations of the inter-relationships between OA and common comorbidities such as DM and CVD.