Recreational running may cut hip, knee arthritis risk

Casual joggers are less likely to experience knee and hip osteoarthritis compared to competitive runners and sedentary individuals, a new study has found.
"The principal finding in this study is that, in general, running is not associated with osteoarthritis," said Eduard Alentorn-Geli from Mayo Clinic in Rochester in the US.
"The novel finding in our investigation is the increased association between running and arthritis in competitive, but not in recreational, runners," Alentorn-Geli said.
Researchers wanted to evaluate the association of hip and knee osteoarthritis with running and to explore the influence of running intensity and years of exposure.
They reviewed 25 studies, and ultimately selected 17 studies involving a total of 114,829 people.

Researchers then conducted a meta-analysis of studies, comparing this occurrence between runners and sedentary individuals who did not run.

Runners were considered "competitive" if they were identified themselves as professional/elite athletes or participated in international competitions.
Recreational runners were those individuals who ran in a nonprofessional or amateur context.
The team found that only 3.5 per cent of recreational runners developed hip or knee arthritis. This was true for both male and female runners.
They also found that remaining sedentary and forgoing running for exercise was associated with a rate of knee and hip arthritis of 10.2 per cent, while training and running competitively increases the incidence of arthritis in these joints to 13.3 per cent.

The study was published in the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy.