Running certainly takes a toll on our body, but many people believe that running actually contributes to knee degeneration over time. Sure, that repetitive stress can lead to injuries and at times knee pain, but a new study recently took aim at the idea that running is a cause of knee osteoarthritis.
The findings were published in the most recent volume of Arthritis Care & Research. For their study, researchers examined a group of 2,637 people. 56 percent were female and the average age was 64 years old. Eight years after joining the study, subjects were given a physical-activity questionnaire that revealed that 778 of them (29.5 percent) had participated in some amount of running. All subjects also received X-rays of their knees to look for radiographic evidence of arthritis (ROA).
Running and Knee Pain
Researchers initially believed that “a history of leisure running may increase the risk for knee symptoms and ROA, even at lower levels,” but they actually found the opposite to be true, stating “a history of leisure running is not associated with increased odds of prevalent knee pain, ROA, or SOA [symptoms of arthritis]. In fact, for knee pain, there was a dose-dependent inverse association with runners.”
Researchers found that people who ran the most actually had the lowest amount of knee pain. “This was true across all age groups and for running at any time in one’s life,” noted first author Grace Hsaio-Wei Lo, M.D, an assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Researchers also noted that subjects who were still running had less knee pain than those who had quit running, and the runners who quit reported less knee pain than the subjects who stated they never ran.
“This cohort was not created based on elite running status, making these findings potentially more applicable to a broader population than many prior studies,” researchers concluded. “This is the largest study to look at running similar to what the everyday person would do.”
So while the study stops short of proving cause and effect, it’s clear that running can help keep your knees in top shape when correct form is used and overuse is avoided.
