BACKGROUND: Treatment of Charcot osteoarthropathy (COA) requires restricted walking and offloading for several months, which lead to fat re-distribution and increased sarcopenia.

OBJECTIVES/AIM: To investigate whether subjects with COA have an altered body composition compared to controls.

METHODS: Cross-sectional case-control study of people with diabetes with acute or chronic Charcot osteoarthropathy, matched with otherwise healthy people with diabetes. A total of 49 subjects (distribution ~1:1) had a total body DXA-scanning, measuring appendicular lean mass, android/gynoid and truncal/total body fat distribution ratios.

RESULTS: Sarcopenia frequency was higher in the total population with diabetes overall (9-40%), compared to normal materials. Using two different models for correlating appendicular lean mass to sarcopenia, there were no differences in sarcopenia-rates between the groups (P=0.413 and 0.948 respectively). There was no significant difference in lean tissue mass between the affected and the unaffected leg in the immobilised subject group (P=0.830). The average fat percentage was (29.4-37.7%) in the population with diabetes, compared to a matching background population (24.5-31.9%), whereas there were no significant differences found between the groups (P=0.065). Neither truncal/total fat percent nor android/gynoid fat percent ratios showed differences between the groups.

CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the first published dataset investigating body composition in subjects with Charcot osteoarthropathy. The study population of diabetics were more fat and sarcopenic than normal subjects, whereas no statistically significant impact of Charcot osteoarthropathy was found.