Synovial fluid

Researchers Burst Bubble on Knuckle Cracking

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That mysterious and cringe-making sound, explained at last.

What’s almost as satisfying as cracking your knuckles? Settling the age-old question of what makes that sound.

Canadian researchers used an MRI movie technology to answer whether it is the formation of a cavitation bubble within a joint’s synovial fluid or the collapse of the bubble.

Verdict: it’s the former, wrote Gregory Kawchuk, PhD, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and colleagues in PLOS One.

They observed that the cracking sounds emitted from metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joints corresponded to the formation of a cavity within the synovial fluid.

Though the researchers still don’t know “if the cavity makes the sound … they do occur at the same time,” Kawchuk told MedPage Today in an email.

The theory that bubble formation causes a cracking sound was first put forth in 1947, when researchers used serial radiography to visualize MCP joints.

As force is applied, joint surfaces resist separation but after a critical point rapidly separate. This increase in volume results in a decrease in pressure, causing dissolved gas in synovial fluid to come out of solution and form a bubble. Researchers linked the emission of a cracking sound to the formation of this clear space seen on x-ray.

The theory went largely unchallenged until 1971, when another team used radiography to propose a different reason for the noise: the subsequent collapse of the bubble.

Until now, “no direct evidence exist[ed] to resolve these differing perspectives,” wrote Kawchuk and colleagues.

One adult male subject provided ten MCP joints to study. The subject lay prone on the MRI machine, while “the finger of interest was inserted into a tubular finger trap.” The finger trap’s opposite end was connected to a cable which gradually provided increasing force until a crack was heard.

Images showed normal MCP joints with minimal surface separation and no gaseous cavity before force was applied.

“Cine MRI revealed rapid cavity inception associated with concurrent sound production and joint separation,” authors wrote, describing the “dark signal intensities” that represented air.

 The cavity was never seen to collapse after sound production, though authors noted that the slice thickness did not allow visualization of the entire joint. “Future studies that image peripheral areas of the MCP may reveal the fate of the cavity formed,” they wrote.

There was one surprise that occurred before the joint cracked: a transient bright signal in the intra-articular space. “We believe it is a collection of fluid,” Kawchuk told MedPage Today.

Specifically, the signal could represent the evacuation of fluid from the joint cartilage as tension increased, authors wrote. If so, the finding could be a noninvasive way to assess cartilage health.

Authors pointed out that the study did not investigate sound amplitude. The noise production in the study was relatively small, “whereas joint cracking can easily be heard across a room.”

Kawchuk added in an email that he would next like to research why cracking “happens in some joints/people and not others.”

Is Cracking Your Knuckles Harmful?

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Your joints, including those in your knuckles, are surrounded by a membrane called the synovial membrane, which forms a capsule around the ends of your bones. Inside this membrane is synovial fluid, which acts as a lubricant and shock absorber so your bones don’t grind together when you move.

Cracking Knuckles and Arthritis

Story at-a-glance

  • Cracking your knuckles is not linked to an increased risk of arthritis
  • Habitual knuckle cracking has been linked to hand swelling, lower grip strength, knuckle pads, and injuries, including dislocated fingers, and overstretched ligaments
  • Some experience a “therapeutic release” upon cracking their knuckles, but the potential for damage outweighs any perceived psychological benefit

When you “crack” your knuckles, or any other joint, it expands the space between your bones, creating negative pressure that draws synovial fluid into the new gap.

This influx of synovial fluid is what causes the popping sound and feeling when you crack a knuckle.1 If you continually crack your knuckles, the synovial membrane and the surrounding ligaments will loosen, making it easier and easier for your joints to crack.

More than 20 years ago, I co-authored a paper titled “Cracking down on neck cracking,” which was published in the journal American Family Physician.2 In it, I argued that self-manipulation may lead to lax ligaments. Personally, I don’t think it’s wise to crack your joints on a regular basis, and research suggests it could have some significant repercussions.

Is Cracking Your Knuckles Associated with Arthritis?

The biggest concern most people have about cracking their knuckles is that it could lead to arthritis, specifically osteoarthritis. If you have osteoarthritis, the cartilage within your joints is progressively being damaged, and the synovial fluid is typically reduced as well.

The pain and joint stiffness that you feel is a result of your bones starting to come into contact with each other as cartilage and synovial fluid diminishes. To date, research has not shown a correlation between knuckle cracking and osteoarthritis in your hands.

In one study of more than 200 people, the prevalence of osteoarthritis in any joint was similar among those who cracked knuckles and those who did not.3The same held true when specific joint types were examined. The authors stated:

“Total past duration (in years) and volume (daily frequency x years) of knuckle-cracking (KC) of each joint type also was not significantly correlated with OA [osteoarthritis] at the respective joint. A history of habitual KC – including the total duration and total cumulative exposure ‘does not seem to be a risk factor for hand OA.'”

If you’re interested in lowering your risk of osteoarthritis, it is typically caused by wear-and-tear on your joints along with lifestyle and diet factors, and aging. Repetitive movements often play a role as well, but while it would seem plausible that cracking your joints is also a type of repetitive movement, so far no link has emerged.

Habitual Knuckle Cracking Might Impair Your Hand Function

While cracking your knuckles might not lead to arthritis, it does appear to have other consequences. In a study of 300 people aged 45 and older, habitual knuckle crackers were again not found to have an increased risk of arthritis in their hands. They were, however, more likely to have hand swelling and lower grip strength.4

They also found that knuckle cracking appears to be associated with manual labor, nail biting, smoking, and drinking alcohol… they concluded that habitual knuckle cracking results in functional hand impairment. The damage was likely the result of the repeated stretching and loosening of the ligaments during repeated knuckle cracking.

Interestingly, those researchers noted that cracking your knuckles has been shown to produce “rapid release of energy in the form of sudden vibratory energy, much like the forces responsible for the destruction of hydraulic blades and ship propellers.” This hardly sounds like a completely innocuous habit.

In fact, there are reports in the literature of various injuries that have occurred from knuckle cracking, including overstretching of ligaments in the fingers, dislocated fingers, and a partially torn ligament in the thumb.5

Knuckle Cracking Might Be Linked to Knuckle Pads

Knuckle pads are firm nodules that sometimes form over certain joints in your fingers. They’re often associated with repetitive trauma or movement, and they’ve been known to exist since ancient times (Michelangelo’s statue of David has knuckle pads).6

Knuckle pads are quite common and while they don’t cause physical symptoms, they can have psychological and cosmetic effects. It seems that knuckle cracking may play a role in at least certain cases of this condition.

There is at least one reported case of knuckle pads in a teenaged girl who reported frequently cracking her knuckles daily. In her case, the nodules slowly enlarged over the course of several years, and cracking of the knuckles was listed as the possible cause.7

Are There Benefits to Cracking Your Knuckles?

When you crack your knuckles, the joints become looser and have more mobility for a short period afterward. This perceived positive feeling may be why some people become habitual knuckle crackers.

Another explanation, as reported by one study, is that the movement offers a sort of “therapeutic release.” Chronic knuckle crackers may come to regard the habit as a form of stress relief, although it resembles more of a “nervous habit” like biting your nails (which it is associated with).

Ultimately, there are no significant benefits to cracking your knuckles, and a possibility that it could cause injury or damage to your joints and ligaments over time, so this is one habit that you’re better off without.

If you crack your knuckles and find it difficult to stop, I suggest you to try theEmotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is a powerful self-help method that is very effective for regular stress management as well as for breaking all kinds of addictions, including knuckle cracking. Once the emotional distress is reduced or removed, your body can often rebalance itself and accelerate healing.

Specifically, EFT is a form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over five thousand years, but without the invasiveness of needles.

Instead, simple tapping with your fingertips is used to input kinetic energy into specific meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem — whether it is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, etc. – and voice positive affirmations.

This combination of tapping the energy meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the “short-circuit” — the emotional block — from your body’s bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body’s balance, which is essential for optimal emotional health and the healing of physical disease.

Does Cracking Your Knuckles Cause Arthritis?.

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knuckle-crack

 

Do you crack or “pop” your knuckles? Some believe it may cause, or worsen, joint conditions such as arthritis. However, according to the featured research,1, 2knuckle-cracking does not appear to be a risk factor for osteoporosis in that joint.

About one in five adults, or nearly 50 million Americans, have been diagnosed with arthritis, the most common form of which is osteoarthritis.3

If you have osteoarthritis, the cartilage within your joints is progressively being damaged, and the synovial fluid that keeps your joints lubricated and cushioned is typically reduced as well.

The pain and joint stiffness that you feel is a result of your bones starting to come into contact with each other as cartilage and synovial fluid is reduced, and if you don’t take action, it can become progressively worse until you are unable to carry out your normal daily activities.

In conclusion, the authors stated that:

“Total past duration (in years) and volume (daily frequency ‘- years) of knuckle-cracking (KC) of each joint type also was not significantly correlated with OA at the respective joint. A history of habitual KC – including the total duration and total cumulative exposure ‘does not seem to be a risk factor for hand OA.'”

Twenty years ago, I co-authored a paper titled “Cracking down on ‘neck cracking,’ which was published in the journal American Family Physician.4 In it, I argued that self-manipulation can lead to lax ligaments. Personally, I don’t think it’s wise to crack your joints on a regular basis, even if it doesn’t directly lead to arthritis of the joint. That said, what can make arthritis worse, and how can you address arthritic conditions?

What’s the Difference Between Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis?

Osteoarthritis usually occurs in older individuals, but can also be caused by repetitive stress or acute trauma. Rheumatoid arthritis, on the other hand, can affect you at any age, including children. Fortunately, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) is relatively rare.

Understanding the differences between the two types of arthritis will help you distinguish which one you have.

Osteoarthritis – Degenerative joint disease usually affects the distal joints, or the joints at the end of your fingers and toes, not the middle ones. Additionally, it’s not symmetrical, so typically you may have it on just one joint, or on one hand or foot and not the other.

Rheumatoid arthritis – RA, on the other hand, is an autoimmune disease that causes your body to break itself down. Therefore, it tends to be bilateral and symmetrical, meaning it’s the same on both sides of your body. If you only have a specific joint affected on one side of your body, it is far less likely to be RA. It also affects your middle joints, and is associated with joint deformities, especially your hands and fingers. It can be very crippling, and people do die from rheumatoid arthritis, so it’s not something to be treated lightly.

Little-Known Risk Factors for Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis

Recent research5 has identified several lifestyle factors and pre-existing conditions that may increase your risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, including:

  • Smoking
  • Obesity
  • Diabetes

As for osteoarthritis, a recent analysis6 found that the greater a woman’s exposure to perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), the greater her risk for developing osteoarthritis. Interestingly, the same correlation was not found in men. It’s believed the reason for this is the impact of these chemicals on women’s hormones. PFC’s are commonly found in nonstick cookware, takeout containers and carpeting, just to name a few.

Even though osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are two entirely different diseases, they can be treated in much the same way as foundationally inflammation as at the core of the pain. So even though osteoarthritis is typically caused by wear-and-tear on your joints due to lifestyle, diet and aging, and rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which your body starts destroying itself, you may gain relief from the following treatments regardless of which type of arthritis you have.

First: Basic Lifestyle Changes to Address Arthritis

I believe improving your diet using my nutritional guidelines is crucial for your success. It addresses all of the nutritional guidelines presented in this article, and more. In addition, there are some general principles that seem to hold true for virtually everyone and these include:

  • Eliminating sugar, especially fructose, and most grains. For most people with rheumatoid arthritis, you’ll want to be very careful to limit fructose to just 15 grams per day or less, and this includes fructose from whole fruit.
  • Opting for organic food, preferably locally grown, and eat your food as close to raw as possible
  • Incorporating regular exercise into your daily schedule. Weight training has been found to be of particular benefit for those with rheumatoid arthritis and, contrary to popular belief, if you have osteoarthritis exercise is absolutely crucial to your well-being. Naturally, if you’re in pain, you need to take certain precautions, so for more information on how to adjust your exercise if you have either of these conditions, please follow the links provided

The Importance of Sulfur

Sulfur is just now becoming more widely appreciated as a really critical nutrient, without which many other things don’t work properly, and many are not getting enough sulfur from their diet anymore. Sulfur is found in over 150 different compounds within the human body. There are sulfur components in virtually every type of cell, so it’s extremely important. It plays a critical role in inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, as well as detoxification. Two ways to increase your sulfur intake include:

  • MSM, either from food or supplement: A metabolite of DMSO, MSM primarily impacts your health by reducing inflammation. MSM is 34 percent sulfur by weight, but it’s more than just a simple sulfur donor. It affects sulfur metabolism in your body, although it’s still not entirely clear how. Perhaps most important, MSM helps protect against oxidative damage, and is widely used as a supplement for arthritic conditions.

While many opt for a supplement, MSM is in most raw foods, such as leafy green vegetables. Raw milk has the highest naturally occurring content of MSM.

One caveat is cooking and pasteurization. While MSM is stable to extremes of pH and temperature, it volatilizes and turns to gas very easily. It’s also very water-soluble. So when cooked at high temperatures, it simply wafts off in the steam. That’s why it’s easily removed during cooking and processing. Pasteurization cuts the MSM content by approximately 50 percent. So, in order to ensure you’re getting the most MSM from any food, it must be either raw or as minimally processed as possible.

Fortunately, toxicity studies have shown that MSM is extremely safe and can be taken at very, very high doses. Even if you have a very rich diet full of raw vegetables and MSM-rich foods, you can still supplement and not hit that toxicity level. Clinical research studies have found that the effective amounts range from about 1.5 grams to 6 grams. For comparison, intake of MSM from natural sources such as fruits and vegetables would be in the milligram per day range of about 2.3 to 5.6 mg/day.

  • Bone broth: Simmering leftover bones over very low heat for an entire day will create one of the most nutritious and healing foods known to man. Make sure the bones are from organically raised animals. The connective tissues are sulfur-rich, and when you slow-cook the bones, you dissolve these nutrients out of the bone and into the water.

You can use this broth for soups, stews, or drink it straight. Remember that the “skin” that forms on the top is the best part—this is what contains the most valuable nutrients, including sulfur, along with healthful fats—so make sure to stir it back into the broth.

 

  • Source: mercola.com

 

 

at F�te�� ��� 2 hours before eating them. This will help to get rid of the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors, which can interfere with the function of your own digestive and metabolic enzymes, in the nuts.  To make them more palatable you can you a dehydrator (I like the Excalibur) to improve the texture.

 

Enzyme inhibitors in nuts (and seeds) help protect the nut as it grows, helping to decrease enzyme activity and prevent premature sprouting. When nuts are soaked, the germination process begins, allowing the enzyme inhibitors to be deactivated and increasing the nutrition of the nut significantly, as well as making them much easier to digest. Macadamia nuts (and other white nuts) have only negligible amounts of enzyme inhibitors, so soaking is not as necessary.

Choose Raw Organic Nuts, Ideally

To increase the positive impacts on your health, look for nuts that are organic and raw, not irradiated or pasteurized. Be aware that pasteurized almonds sold in North America can still be labeled “raw” even though they’ve been subjected to one of the following pasteurization methods:

  • Oil roasting, dry roasting or blanching
  • Steam processing
  • Propylene Oxide (PPO) treatment (PPO is a highly toxic flammable chemical compound, once used as a racing fuel before it was prohibited for safety reasons)

There are generally no truly “raw” almonds sold in North America, so don’t be misled. It is possible to purchase raw almonds in the US, but it has to be done very carefully from vendors selling small quantities that have a waiver from the pasteurization requirement. The key is to find a company with the waiver that is not pasteurizing them.

When consumed with these guidelines in mind, raw, organic nuts are a convenient and enjoyable superfood to add to your diet. And this is precisely why they’re recommended as one of the best sources of healthy fats in my nutrition plan.

Source: mercola.com