bibliography*The PainScience Bibliography contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers and others sources, like a specialized blog. This page is about a single scientific paper in the bibliography, Unger 1998.
Does knuckle cracking lead to arthritis of the fingers?
updated
Tags: arthritis, harms, aging, pain problems
PainSci summary of Unger 1998?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided at the bottom of the page, as often as possible.
This study won an “Ig Nobel Prize,” awarded to Donald L. Unger for diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand only — never his right — every day for more than sixty (60) years. What did he find? “There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands.… there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.”
related content
- “The consequences of habitual knuckle cracking,” R L Swezey and S E Swezey, West J Med, 1975.
- “Effect of habitual knuckle cracking on hand function,” J Castellanos and D Axelrod, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 1990.
- “Habitual knuckle cracking and hand function,” P A Simkin, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 1990.
- “Knuckle cracking and hand osteoarthritis,” Kevin Deweber, Mariusz Olszewski, and Rebecca Ortolano, J Am Board Fam Med, 2011.
- “Clinical Inquiry: Does knuckle popping lead to arthritis?,” Tye Powers, Gary Kelsberg, and Sarah Safranek, J Fam Pract, 2016.
- “"Knuckle Cracking": Can Blinded Observers Detect Changes with Physical Examination and Sonography?,” Robert D Boutin, Anuj P Netto, David Nakamura, Cyrus Bateni, Robert M Szabo, Michael Cronan, Brent Foster, William R Barfield, J Anthony Seibert, and Abhijit J Chaudhari, Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research, 2017.
- “Effects of habitual knuckle cracking on metacarpal cartilage thickness and grip strength,” M T Yildizgören, T Ekiz, S Nizamogullari, A D Turhanoglu, H Guler, N Ustun, M Kara, and L Özçakar, Hand Surg Rehabil, 2017.
These four articles on PainScience.com cite Unger 1998 as a source:
- PS Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome — A guide to the unfinished science of muscle pain, with reviews of every theory and self-treatment and therapy option
- PS Save Yourself from IT Band Syndrome! — All your treatment options for Iliotibial Band Syndrome reviewed in great detail, with clear explanations of recent scientific research supporting every key point
- PS Save Yourself from Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome! — Patellofemoral pain syndrome (aka runner’s knee) explained and discussed in great detail, including every imaginable self-treatment option and all the available scientific evidence
- PS Save Yourself from Neck Pain! — A complete guide to chronic neck pain and the disturbing sensation of a “crick”
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Effectiveness of customised foot orthoses for Achilles tendinopathy: a randomised controlled trial. Munteanu 2015 Br J Sports Med.
- A Bayesian model-averaged meta-analysis of the power pose effect with informed and default priors: the case of felt power. Gronau 2017 Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology.
- The neck and headaches. Bogduk 2014 Neurol Clin.
- Agreement of self-reported items and clinically assessed nerve root involvement (or sciatica) in a primary care setting. Konstantinou 2012 Eur Spine J.
- Effect of NSAIDs on Recovery From Acute Skeletal Muscle Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Morelli 2017 Am J Sports Med.