Association between clinical laboratory indicators and WOMAC scores in Qatar Biobank participants: The impact of testosterone and fibrinogen on pain, stiffness, and functional limitation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Objectives The association between baseline laboratory parameters and experienced well-being in healthy individuals remains uncertain. This study explored the relationship between clinical laboratory profiles and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scores for pain, stiffness, and physical functional limitation in healthy individuals in Qatar. Methods Clinical laboratory data were collected from 1,764 Qatar Biobank participants who also completed the WOMAC questionnaire: lipid profiles (high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, cholesterol, and triglycerides), endocrine markers (TSH, T3, T4, estradiol, and testosterone), and two inflammatory markers (CRP and fibrinogen). Multiple linear regression was used with 11 clinical indicators as independent variables and the subscale and total WOMAC scores as dependent variables. Multivariate effects of each indicator on the outcomes were assessed, and univariate effects were examined when significant. Results Testosterone had a significant impact on all WOMAC subscales (pain, stiffness, and functional limitation) and the total WOMAC score. Higher testosterone levels were associated with a reduction in pain ( β = −0.03, t = −3.505, p < 0.001, 95% CI = −0.052, −0.015), stiffness ( β = −0.01, t = −2.265, p = 0.024, 95% CI = −0.018, −0.001), physical dysfunction ( β = −0.08, t = −3.265, p = 0.001, 95% CI = −0.135, −0.034), and total WOMAC scores ( β = −0.127, t = −3.444, p < 0.001, 95% CI = −0.199, −0.055). Elevated fibrinogen levels were associated with an increase in stiffness ( β = 0.155, t = 2.241, p = 0.025, 95% CI = 0.019, 0.290), physical dysfunction ( β = 1.17, t = 2.808, p = 0.005, 95% CI = 0.354, 1.997), and total WOMAC scores ( β = 1.610, t = 2.691, p = 0.007, 95% CI = 0.437, 2.784). Conclusion Testosterone may protect against pain, stiffness, and physical dysfunction, while high fibrinogen levels might be a surrogate of systemic inflammation that enhances stiffness and limits physical function. Measuring multiple clinical and laboratory markers in healthy individuals may enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying pain.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".