Long distance running and knee osteoarthritis. A prospective study

Chakravarty EF, et al. · American Journal of Preventive Medicine

After 18 years, runners did not have more knee OA than controls (20% vs 32%, p=0.25) and severe OA was rarer in runners (2.2% vs 9.4%, p=0.21). The runners started worse, not better: 6.7% had radiographic OA at baseline against none of the controls. Higher initial BMI, initial radiographic damage and longer time to final radiograph predicted worse outcomes; running exposure did not. Decades of running did not wear out these knees.

Population

45 long-distance runners and 53 healthy controls (mean age 58 at baseline)

Intervention

Exposure: long-distance running; serial knee radiographs over 18 years

Comparator

Non-running controls

Limitations

Small, non-randomized, healthy-runner selection; differences not statistically significant in either direction.