TRUE OR FALSE - CRACKING MY KNUCKLES WILL GIVE ME ARTHRITIS

Do you love cracking your knuckles? Oh of course you do, who doesn’t!

But is this act tainted with the feeling of guilt that you are doing irreparable harm to your joints?

Will cracking my knuckles give me arthritis?

Answer – Probably not!

# A 2011 case-control study examined the hand x-rays of more than 200 people and compared their hand joints. They found no difference between crackers and non-crackers regardless of how often a person cracked their knuckles or how long that person had been doing it for!

# Another interesting study was carried out by a determined knuckle-cracker.

To test the accuracy of the hypothesis that knuckle cracking leads to arthritis, the following study was undertaken. For 50 years, the author cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control. Thus, the knuckles on the left were cracked at least 36,500 times, while those on the right cracked rarely and spontaneously. At the end of the 50 years, the hands were compared for the presence of arthritis. There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands!

So what is the cracking noise and why does it feel good?

The noise of cracking or popping in our joints is actually nitrogen bubbles bursting in our synovial fluid.

Synovial fluid lubricates your joints like motor oil in a car’s engine, reducing friction and preserving our cartilage. The nitrogen bubbles within the synovial fluid usually take 20 minutes to re-form in your joints before they can crack again.

Part of the appeal of knuckle cracking could be that 20-minute lull, when gas bubbles are re-forming in the synovial fluid. You might feel ‘looser’ during that period, as if you’ve relieved pressure from your joints.