The most recent study, published just last year, is the most comprehensive so far, because it looks not only at whether people ever crack their knuckles, but also how often they do it. You might guess that cracking your knuckles every fifteen minutes could have a very different effect from doing it once a day, but again it made no difference to rates of osteoarthritis. In fact, there was no difference in the prevalence of osteoarthritis between those who did or did not crack their knuckles.
Crack on
So how did the idea of a relationship between knuckle-cracking and arthritis emerge? It’s true that people who already have arthritis sometimes find their joints crack because the cartilage of the surface of the joints has been damaged. However it’s unusual for this to be the first symptom and it seems more likely to be a consequence of damage, rather than a cause. The risk factors of arthritis that have been established are age, a family history of the condition, and previous accidents with hand, or a lifetime of working with your hands doing heavy labour.
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