Your mother probably warned you as a child that popping your knuckles can cause arthritis, and if you were like most kids, you didn’t listen. After all, most children aren’t too concerned about arthritis anyway. But if you’re now an adult who is worried about your years of knuckle popping, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Just like the age-old myth that drinking coffee stunts your growth, the belief that knuckle popping causes arthritis is completely false.
When you pop your knuckles, you’re actually creating an air bubble in the synovial fluid of your joints and popping it. As you bend back your fingers, you pull apart the bones in the joints and stretch out the connective tissue. This causes the volume within the joints to increase, allowing dissolved gases from the synovial fluid to collect and form a bubble of air. As the joint is stretched further, the pressure drops so low that the air bubble bursts, causing a popping sound.
Researchers from the Science Institute of Health in Prague, Czech Republic, performed a study to determine whether routine knuckle popping was linked to arthritis. This retrospective case-control study involved 215 participants, 135 of whom had hand osteoarthritis, and 80 who did not. All participants were between the ages of 50 and 89. The study found that 20 percent of the study participants cracked their knuckles regularly. Out of the participants who regularly cracked their knuckles, 18.1 percent had hand osteoarthritis. In the participants who did not crack their knuckles, 21.5 had hand osteoarthritis. The researchers concluded that there was no significant statistical difference in the prevalence of hand osteoarthritis between knuckle crackers and non-knuckle crackers.
Although knuckle cracking does not lead to arthritis, there is evidence that it could lead to other joint problems. Another study, performed by Raymond Brodeur and published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, examined whether habitual knuckle cracking led to joint damage. This study evaluated 300 people who cracked their knuckles on a regular basis. The findings showed evidence of soft tissue damage to the joint capsule and reduced grip strength (Source: HowStuffWorks).
So, the next time you’re about to “get cracking” on those knuckles, you may want to stop and think about the potential damage you’re doing to your joints. Although knuckle popping won’t cause arthritis, it could lead to some other painful side effects. Maybe mother really does know best after all!
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Jack Jacobs, MD