Is Running Bad for Your Knees?

Study suggests it may slow development of osteoarthritis

By Randy Dotinga

Thursday, January 5, 2017

THURSDAY, Jan. 5, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Everybody believes running can leave you sore and swollen, right? Well, a new study suggests running might actually reduce inflammation in joints.

"It flies in the face of intuition," said study co-author Matt Seeley, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "This idea that long-distance running is bad for your knees might be a myth."

Seeley and his colleagues reached their surprising conclusion after analyzing the knee joint fluid of several healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 35. The researchers looked for signs of inflammation in chemical markers before and after a 30-minute run and found little difference.

"What we now know is that for young, healthy individuals, exercise creates an anti-inflammatory environment that may be beneficial in terms of long-term joint health," lead author Robert Hyldahl said in a university news release. Hyldahl is an assistant professor of exercise science at BYU.

The researchers said the study suggests running could actually delay development of degenerative joint diseases like osteoarthritis.

"This study does not indicate that distance runners are any more likely to get osteoarthritis than any other person," Seeley said. "Instead, this study suggests exercise can be a type of medicine."

The study was published recently in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

SOURCES: Brigham Young University, press release, December 2016

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