Abstract
Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic joint disease. Since the body roundness index (BRI) is associated with various chronic diseases, our goal was to examine the relationship between ORI and the risk of OA using systematic review and meta-analysis methods.
Materials and Methods: Web of Science, Cochrane, Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and Google Scholar databases were used to find articles published until May 15, 2025. Data were entered into SPSS 19 and analyzed using STATA 14. Tests with P values lower than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: High BRI levels increased the risk of OA based on OR (1.49, 95%CI: 1.27, 1.75), HR (1.21, 95%CI: 1.07, 1.36), in China (OR: 1.14, 95%CI: 1.03, 1.26), in USA (OR: 1.54, 95%CI: 1.35, 1.76), among men (OR: 1.15, 95%CI: 1.11, 1.20), and women (OR: 1.12, 95%CI: 1.09, 1.14). Furthermore, the second quartile of BRI compared with the first quartile (OR: 1.29, 95%CI: 1.12, 1.49), the third BRI quartile compared with the first (OR: 1.36, 95%CI: 1.17, 1.58), and the fourth BRI quartile compared with the first (OR: 1.77, 95%CI: 1.41, 2.21) increased the risk of OA.
Conclusion: High BRI levels increased the risk of OA, and men were exposed to a higher risk than women, and the risk of OA in Americans was higher than in the Chinese population. Furthermore, the risk of OA occurrence increased at higher BRI levels.
Registration: This study has been compiled based on the PRISMA checklist, and its protocol was registered on the PROSPERO (ID: CRD420251061127) and Research Registry (UIN: reviewregistry2007( websites.