"Popping" joints... How bad is it really?

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flips123

Gymnast
I've always "cracked" every part of my body, back, neck, wrists, fingers, toes, hips, ect. as a nervous habit and because I don't like the feeling of being tight. I've noticed as I get older that some things crack on their own and that my finger joints seem to appear swollen. I could just be how I'm made, or I am relating two completely unrelated things. I'm really curious if it is bad do this? I remember hearing as a kid not to do it because it causes arthritis and later heard it caused the bursa sacks to eventually wear out. Lately I've heard it is okay to do fingers and toes but not the back and neck because it stretches the tendons out and wears on their elasticity. I've also noticed that gymnasts tend to "crack" themselves more than others so I figured it would be relevant here. So what's the deal? Is it really bad for you? And what about chiropractors?
 
I've always "cracked" my knuckles as well. I've been trying to kick the habit because sometimes the joints in my fingers ache when I do so.
I've heard all the myths about cracking your knuckles too, but I'm not sure which of them are true. It'll be interesting to see what others say.
 
im 33 and have always cracked my self. now with sciatica i find it hard to crack my back on my own but my neck cracks easily. my joints start hurting if i dont crack, thats how i know when im ready for a crack but my fingers are an automatic thing. my husband uses a special technique to do my back and thats about 2 times a week. i grew up hearing that its not good, but i havent had any problems so far.
 
There was a famous nobel prize winner called Donald Unger, who proved that cracking your knuckles can't cause arthritis. His mother told him one day that cracking his knuckles would cause him to have arthritis, so for 60 years he cracked only the knuckles in one hand. Test were conducted after 60 years and both hands had the same amount of arthritis in them, proving to everyone that cracking doesn't cause arthritis.

My coach (a head physio) has always said that natural cracks are okay (through stretching, moving naturally etc.) but any forced clicks, like neck, back, shoulders are not.
 
There was a famous nobel prize winner called Donald Unger, who proved that cracking your knuckles can't cause arthritis. His mother told him one day that cracking his knuckles would cause him to have arthritis, so for 60 years he cracked only the knuckles in one hand. Test were conducted after 60 years and both hands had the same amount of arthritis in them, proving to everyone that cracking doesn't cause arthritis.
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A study done on a population of 1 only proves that it hasn't caused arthritis in that person, it doesn't prove that it does not increase the risk of arthritis generally. Far more data would be needed to make that assertion - it would be interesting to hear if anyone has done any work studying a large group.
 
A study done on a population of 1 only proves that it hasn't caused arthritis in that person, it doesn't prove that it does not increase the risk of arthritis generally. Far more data would be needed to make that assertion - it would be interesting to hear if anyone has done any work studying a large group.
the problem with longitudinal studies over that long a period is the amount of drop outs that occur in the study. People die, people move, people want to forget their previous life and people cheat. I've done enough psychology work to know that. A study would have to be done over 60'years also with 2 groups of people, minimum of say 1,000 people in the test and control groups each. You can see where it starts to get complicated here in terms of reliability and cost
 
I agree, it would have to be a retrospective study, looking at presence or absence of arthritis in people who report a habit of cracking their knuckles and a control group of those who don't. The problems with dropouts, incorrect reporting etc are universal and can be taken into account in the analysis.
 

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