Running for Your Knees!

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

As a runner of more than 15 years, it brought great joy to my heart (and knees) to read this...

An article in Skeletal Radiology, a well-respected journal, created something of a sensation in Europe last year. It reported that researchers from Danube Hospital in Austria examined the knees of marathon runners using M.R.I. imaging, before and after the 1997 Vienna marathon. Ten years later, they scanned the same runners’ knees again. The results were striking. “No major new internal damage in the knee joints of marathon runners was found after a 10-year interval,” the researchers reported.

And in slightly more approachable language, the article speculates that “continuous exercise is protective, rather than destructive,” to knees.

And the story doesn't end there.

An important 2008 study, this one from Stanford University, followed middle-aged, longtime distance runners (not necessarily marathoners) for nearly 20 years... After 20 years, however, the runners’ knees were healthier... Barely 2 percent of the runners’ knees were severely arthritic, while almost 10 percent of the control group’s were. “We were quite surprised,” says Eliza Chakravarty, an assistant professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “Our hypothesis going in had been that runners, because of the repetitive pounding, would develop more frequent and more severe arthritis.”

And...

A group of engineers and doctors at Stanford published a study in the February issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it.

So I'll admit: this doesn't connect directly to school health policy. But it's a reminder for us all to get out there and move our bodies. Whether we run, dance, swim or just go for some really good walks, it's great to be reminded that exercise is really, really good for us -- kids and adults -- in ways that we may not think about every day.

And for those running for HSC's marathon team (as I am), good luck, and train on knowing that you're keeping your heart, mind and knees strong -- all for a great cause.

Thanks for your support!

And if you'd like to help support HSC's running team (or my run for that matter), click here...

Comments

[Tim Magner]

Mark,
I wish it didn't connect to kids. We don't need a study to tell us kids benefit from getting exercise— and will have lower healthcare bills later on?

I'm not advocating 2nd graders running track, but kids will build up strength if we give kids a chance to do what they've been doing for 150,000 years: playing outdoors!

Growing Green Minds,
Tim Magner
http://www.greensugarpress.com

[Mark Bishop]

I'm with you Tim. Just get out there and move.

And by the way, great interview on NBC.

Mark

[twitter.com/srmski]

Ditto on lowering healthcare expense through activity ... wish the system priced healthcare insurance according to ones lifestyle impact on health risks ...

Stan

[Rob Rogers]

An additional thought on running and knees… It's been my experience in completing 8 marathons over the past 10 years, whenever my knees start aching, it's typically because something else is hurting. A weak hip flexor or a tight piriformis might be causing some form of compensation which registers as pain in the knees.