Running and hip or knee arthritis
There was a discussion on this blog yesterday about whether running causes or exacerbates hip problems. Serendipitously, today I noticed this article reporting on research on the subject:
Contrary to widespread opinion, running marathons does not increase your risk for developing hip or knee osteoarthritis, the wear and tear form of the disease, a new study of seasoned Chicago marathoners showed.
“You don’t develop knee or hip osteoarthritis simply because of how fast you run or how many miles you put on your body,” said study author Dr. Matthew James Hartwell, an orthopedic surgery sports medicine fellow at the University of the University of California, San Francisco…
For the study, more than 3,800 Chicago marathoners (mean age: nearly 44) answered questions about their running history, including number of marathons, number of years spent running, and average weekly mileage. They also answered questions about known risk factors for knee and hip arthritis…
Running history wasn’t linked to the development of knee or hip arthritis on its own, the study showed.
Hmmm. What does this study really say? Isn’t it only about people who already are running marathons in middle age, which has to be a selected group to begin with? And it doesn’t seem to be comparing them to non-runners; just to other runners. So it is about comparing marathoners who run faster and more to those who run more slowly and less often. I suppose if I were a marathoner – which I most certainly am not – I might find it of interest.
There’s this little sentence quite far down in the piece [emphasis miine]:
“A long-held myth is that cumulative running mileage causes osteoarthritis of the knee and hip, [but] distance running doesn’t cause osteoarthritis in an otherwise healthy person without prior joint injury or surgery,” said Matava, who was not involved with the study.
Running can make preexisting arthritis worse in folks who already have it to some degree, he noted.
It sort of started with an observation about speed skating (thighs of enourmous size) and pounding on the track (running) and joint damage. Training for speed skating (or bicycling will give you hudge thighs) as will sprinting in track and field. Distance running, not so much, and certainly not marathon running (thin and spindly but muscled nonetheless).
Marathon running involves a lot of long training runs (12-24 miles) and/or long interval training sets of half mile or mile repeats with never enough rest between the repeats. If you don’t do the miles in training the race day will be very unpleasant.
Self selection is probablly a strong determinant in runners vs osteoarthritis (WAG).
Plantar fasciitis, now that is a running injury to make you truly miserable. Worse than sciatica, another bane. But then there are vehicles, animals, trips and falls, heat, cold, homicidal maniacs, rednecks; be careful trying to be healthy.
I was a sprinter in college so I did a lot of running. No distance work. I’m 67 now, and I have a hard time walking any distance, from arthritis in my hip. Odd thing is, it doesn’t bother me at all just walking around the house. Going for walks, the first 400 yds or so are fine, but then the pain gets progressively worse. Occasionally get the same thing in my left ankle. Definitely makes grocery shopping a painful chore, because stores are huge now and laid out such as to make you visit every crevice.
I have run ~20 marathons (many training weeks more than 20 miles
over many years.)
I’m 75 now and still enjoy skiing – especially moguls (big mounds of snow.)
I’ve still got my original knees and hips – no pain.
I attribute my health to genetics.
Like Jack LaLanne said “Use it or Lose it!”
it seems too small a sample, and what’s a controlling group,
The couch potatoes are in control.
At 70 I’m still playing golf walking 9 once a week, and still reffing youth soccer. For the soccer I now limit myself to the 12 and under ages…shorter field and slower game, though I’ve been pressed into service for older kids due to ref shortage.
Last fall developed right leg sciatica with neuropathy in the right foot. After consult with my PCP, started PT that is having good results. If I do too many games I get pain on the inside of my knee. I end up wrapping in athletic tape which helps. I may have to give up the reffing….they’ll have to carry me off the golf course.
I have had bursitis in my left hip since I had to quit lifting heavy weights at age 84. I’ve had a steroid shot that helped some but didn’t cure the bursitis. A couple of months ago, I began taking collagen peptides. It has been amazing. My hip bursitis is gone. And I feel, in general, better.
I take Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides that I buy at Costco. It’s a white tasteless powder. I put a 1/3 of a cup of it in my morning coffee. Easy to remember and easy to drink. It doesn’t change the taste at all. I began noticing the effect on my bursitis after about a week. You can mix it in any liquid, even water. I’m sold on it. Give it a try, it might help with joint problems.
JJ, I went into PT for hip bursitis. Besides exercise, they used “iontophoresis,” which involves a liquid steroid applied to the inside of a large band-aid thing with a plus and minus marked at each end and a little watch-sized battery in the middle. The electric current drives the steroid into the joint. I wore it for four hours before removing. Six applications, and the bursitis is gone. I’m still stretching.
But I’ll look into the collagen. Thanks.
JJ, here’s a review that agrees it helps. I’ll try it.
https://www.forbes.com/health/body/vital-proteins-collagen-review/
I ran until my mid-20s. Perhaps my best was 14 miles in 2 hours at 5,500 feet in the Colombian mountains. Some 6 months after that when back in the US, my knee got sore while running. An MD told me that my knee alignment caused cartilage to get scraped off. I stopped running.
I walk about 3 miles a day in my 70s. No knee problems.My sister complains that her knee gets sore after playing pickle ball for 2 hours. My reply: what do you expect?
As with nearly every sports medicine study, the design is ridiculous. Or perhaps, the claims re: conclusions to be drawn are far too broad and certain.
My favorite was a study that made broad definitive claims about the ‘best’ way to lift weights. A PE class of 30+ kids in college was divided into two groups. They were freshmen and none had ever lifted before. The groups were given different workout protocols (one was low weight/higher reps, the other was heavier with lower reps). They lifted three times a week for ten weeks.
There was no genetic testing, no monitoring of effort, no monitoring of diet, nothing.
Based only on a few weeks of lifting by a small group of teenage newbies without any effort to control for factors that very clearly matter, the authors made very strong claims of having proven the best way to lift for all lifters of all ages and experience.
The hubris is jaw dropping.
I haven’t read the article and won’t. Today, I had to have some lab tests done at the hospital. I’m 70. Since I was there, I went to the the local grocery store, which is located in a university town. It was full of old faculty, who looked like bitter shrunken apples, but these worthless people are a million times more trustworthy than the blankety blank Marxists who are now doing the so-called research. Don’t believe a word they say, without careful verification.
What’s an example? I ran competitive track and cross-country. Now, I have problems with my knees. No, I don’t think it’s correlation without causation. Yes, I think it was worth it. That’s life.
stan:
Thanks for sharing your assessment of one study and applying it to another, your anecdote was especially convincing (not).
My father ran religiously from around age 40 to 92, ran his last marathon at 68. And he did need to have hip replacement surgery in his 80’s. Lots of things can go wrong as we age, not just hips, but feet and knees, not to mention straight out trauma. I expect it is difficult to separate out all the components, especially as there is a lot of interaction between them. For instance, sore feet can lead to compensation that affects the knees, etc., etc. Just have to play it by ear and adjust as you can.
I agree with Monte Meals that genetics plays a key role– and taking care of yourself.
Ran cross country and played soccer in college. Damaged my knees in a skiing accident in college, but recovered.
Never ran again until age 60. Sedentary job, eating too much fast food and my weight crept up to 220. Had a bet with my wife as to who could lose the most weight in a month. Joined a gym and hit the treadmill. At first I couldn’t jog a 1/2 mile. Slowly worked up to a 5K that spring. (I won the bet.) Realized I enjoyed running and started doing 10k’s with an occasional half marathon.
Shin splits, plantar fasciitis, etc. just part of the process. The pulled hamstring was the hardest to recover from. I finally settled on running every third day. Then came the torn meniscus. Had a couple of surgeries, and a steroid shot or two. The second surgery did no good.
After the first knee replacement in 2014, I bought a bike– which I never liked, but it did keep me in shape. There is something about running that lets you zone out. Riding a bike and you have to keep constant vigil you aren’t going to be run over by a careless driver. (The fact a friend was hit while riding and suffered severe brain damage probably colored by view of bikes.) During the five years I ran, I lost 50 pounds.
Just had my second knee replacement this summer. Building a couple of houses did my knee second knee in as much as the running. (Climbing ladders puts lots of strain on the knee.)
I wish I had done stem cell therapy when my first knee started bothering me, rather than the surgery.
When you run (jog) you do put a high amount of weight on the joints– something like 8-900 pounds for a 170 pound runner. Good form can help.
Then there’s Dick Beardsley. Champion runner that didn’t quit with two knee replacements. The fact he’s only 135 pounds no doubt helps.
By the way, the steroid shots break down the meniscus, so it’s not a long term solution. And the osteotomy is just removing some of the meniscus.
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/running/dick-beardsley-61-and-minus-two-knees-runs-better-you/
Arthritis and other diseases caused by inflammation are the result of a species inappropriate diet.
04/04/2021
For 2 million years, humans ate meat and little else — study
Tel Aviv University researchers says Stone Age humans were apex predators, only moved to more plant-based diet 85,000 years ago
2 million years is an adaptive evolutionary time span. The “balanced diet” model is relatively new. It doesn’t work for most people because their genetics and digestive systems are not made for it. Transitioning to plant-based nutrition would potentially require a similar evolutionary adaptation over a very long time to come.
See also this 5 minute video:
How I Get All My Nutrients with the Carnivore Diet
For 2 million years humans were picky eaters and would rather starve than crack a coconut or peel a plantain.
Sounds like bullsh*t. But it gets clicks.
I imagine genetics is a huge part of the answer to the question.
Of my close circle of friends I’m the only one still running and cycling regularly. The others who enjoyed one or both activities have had to stop due to knee pain. I think it’s just dumb luck on my part. I do have to be much more focused when I run. I notice if I misplant a foot or stride a bit too far I can easily tweak a tendon, joint or muscle that takes a few days to resolve. I’m actively trying to lose weight and am curious to see if carrying less weight allows me to be a bit more aggressive in my technique.
One thing I noticed as I aged, and I’ve heard the same from others; sometime in my ’30s injuries became much more common and recovery took much longer. In my teens I could play basketball aggressively and twist an ankle and be right as rain the next morning. Twisting an ankle now would result in a limp for weeks!
Occasional nuts and berries in season, even less frequently raiding a honey beehive followed by 2 days of sugar coma. Otherwise, hunting skills adapted stone age humans to not only obtaining quantities of food, but eliminating competition – including other humanoids.
“Little else”, “more”, and “most” infer gray areas found in nature. So life goes.
Sugar coma, otay, cough, bullsh*t.
JJ, saw my trainer this morning, and he recommends the collagen, and uses it himself. So I’ll try it for a few weeks and see what I think.
I’ll go way out on a limb and say different people are different. Some people smoke a pack a day for life and don’t get lung cancer.
Good luck, Kate. I hope it works for you.
JJ, I’ll watch for you to post something in a few weeks and report!
Banned Lizard:
Please watch this video with information on hunter/gatherers and their diets.
I have been an avid but slow runner since I was in high school. I have run dozens of 5K’s, 10K’s and half marathons. I only managed to run one marathon and decided that was enough for me. 🙂 I am 58 but just recently went to the Ortho doc because my knees sometimes hurt in a spot that could mean that my meniscus is having trouble. What they found is that I have arthritis in my knees which is catching and slowly fraying my meniscus. The doc said that it is just an unfortunate thing for me and the cause is arthritis and not all the miles. They also said that I am almost bone-on-bone in one knee and that running would cause me to get a knee replacement sooner rather than later. Ugh! So, since I am a super slow runner anyway, I have resorted to walking several miles 3 times a week and am doing some low weight high rep work at my local gym to stay in shape. Doc said that I could do anything that does not actively hurt my knees.
“What the research into stem cells and arthritis shows is that there are opportunities for stem cell treatment to be used as injection therapy alone and in addition to orthopedic surgical procedures. Successful stem cell therapies thus far have resulted mostly in pain relief and improvement in function or quality of life. Only a few limited early studies have demonstrated improvement in new cartilage or bone formation needed to cure arthritis. Exactly how that cartilage regrowth occurs, or even how pain relief is achieved, is still unknown. That means if you have a stem cell procedure, it will be used to treat the symptoms of arthritis only. The ability to cure the disease entirely is not yet available.” – Mayo Clinic article
ArmyMom, have you looked into stem cell therapy?
The positives– it works, based on reports from those who have used it.
The negatives– it’s not approved, so insurance companies won’t cover the cost, and it’s not a permanent solution. I looked into trying it for my second knee from a pain specialist in Bellevue, Wa. but he charged $5,000 and said based on the fact I was going to continue running, he estimated I would need to have it done every couple of years.
There are clinics around the country that do it for closer to $3,000.
They draw bone marrow from you, spin it to isolate stem cells and then inject those cells into your joint, so the procedure is safe.
After I had my first knee replacement in the fall of 2014 I waited for the knee to heal, and then did a few 5K’s. My Ortho suggested I use a bike for training, and the 5k’s shouldn’t be a problem degrading the artificial joint. The problem was the second knee started hurting enough I couldn’t finish a 5K, except using a combination running/walking. I did a few of those with my grandkids, etc.– but wasn’t worth it.
I will say there have been significant improvements in the replacement surgery between 2014 and 2022. They now target localized pain control rather than oxycontin. I will say recovery is fairly painful, but I tried to avoid as much pain medicine as possible.
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-q-and-a-stem-cell-therapy-for-arthritis/
I would say the therapy is already here, it will take time for Orthopedists to catch up, as well as insurance companies. They won’t pay for a $3000-$5000 procedure, but will pay for a $50,000 replacement.
JJ & Kate,
Vital Collagen – my ‘lives to surf and snowboard’ husband swears by it. Is always putting it on my Costco list. I guess I’ll have to find something palatable to put it in – I don’t drink coffee or shakes.
Been running – sorta a – since my daughter was born 29 years ago. Never done a marathon, but one summer did 7 miles three times a week. Too much sun. And didn’t seem to make any difference in sleep or weight. So back to 3 miles, 3 times a week. With the dog. Running with a dog is The Best. Can’t wait for the puppy to hit a year and start her off.