Does cracking your knuckles really give you arthritis? As we have all commonly been told before, when we crack our knuckles and here the pop, that it will eventually cause arthritis over time. Personally, I do it constantly without thinking twice about what effects it will have on me in the future. This has been a scientific myth that there was direct correlation between the act and the outcome of arthritis.
It was not until recently that a man named Donald Unger began to discover that there was no correlation between the two. Yes people who have arthritis have cracked their knuckles before but not all people who have cracked their knuckles got arthritis. This became especially true in 1998 when Unger published a paper about a discovery he made on himself. He always cracked the knuckles in his right hand but would never crack the knuckles in his left hand. After 60 years of this, he noticed that there was no joint difference in his hands. With the discovery he made, nearly 11 years later in 2009, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine for the paper he published.
He discovered that synovial fluid was the fluid that lay in between joints with the sole purpose to reduce friction. When these joints are stretched, the fluid releases a gas that forms a bubble at the joints. When there is enough pressure applied to the area of the joint, gas bubble will pop, releasing the loud noise we know as the crack. It takes about 30 minutes for the gas bubble to build back up and thats when they are ready to crack again. The synovial fluid is a fluid that your body naturally continues to reproduces therefore there is no correlation between the fluid and arthritis, concluding that this myth is confirmed to not cause arthritis.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/musculoskeletal/question437.htm
http://www.arthritis.org/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crack-research/
I’ve heard this before. I’ve always cracked my knuckles and fingers without wondering if it would cause any damage until I heard about it maybe causing arthritis. Shortly after that though I read somewhere that the cracking we hear is only the synovial fluid air bubbles popping. I thought it was pretty interesting that people tend to get nervous and suspicious of things that they don’t fully understand. They hear a loud pop and automatically assume it means something bad. Luckily we have science to help us rule out misconceptions and superstitions we might have.
This is surprising because it is such a common belief among so many people that cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis; I know that was the reason I stopped doing it. This post led me to question if cracking my back or neck was just as safe and it turns out itis . It will be interesting to see is the research remain consistent in the coming years that cracking your joints has no effect leading to or worsening arthritis.
This is surpassingly because it is such a common belief among so many people that cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis; I know that was the reason I stopped doing it. This post led me to question if cracking my back or neck was just as safe and it turns out it is it is . It will be interesting to see is the research remain consistent in the coming years that cracking your joints has no effect leading to or worsening arthritis.
I find this topic interesting because I always find myself having the urge to crack my knuckles and stop myself because of the common phrase “stop that it’s bad for you, you can get arthritis” but now knowing that it’s all a myth, I can happily crack my knuckles. However, I’ve always wondered if cracking your knuckles can cause an effect in the size of your fingers causing them to seem fatter in size? I decided to look deeper into the effects of cracking your knuckles and check out what I found and it states that cracking them causes swelling in fingers so yes, your fingers may appear fatter in size due to the swelling and it may even reduce grip strength. Great topic!
This is interesting because I always also thought that cracking your knuckles gave you arthritis. I found this interesting website where a type of arthritis makes your body attack its own joints causing synovial fluids to thicken and makes it harder for you to move due to inflammation.
http://arthritis.about.com/od/arthritisbyanatomy/ss/causejointpain_3.htm#step-heading