Knee osteoarthritis in former runners, soccer players, weight lifters, and shooters

Abstract

OLLI IMPIVAARA, TAP10 VIDEMAN, and SEPPO SARNA Objective. To determine the relationship between different physical loading conditions and findings of knee osteoarthritis (OA).Methods. We selected 117 male former top-level athletes (age range 45-68 years) who had participated in sports activities with distinctly different loading conditions: 28 had been long-distance runners, 31 soccer players, 29 weight lifters, and 29 shooters. Histories of lifetime occupational and athletic knee loading, knee injuries, and knee symptoms were obtained, and subjects were examined clinically and radiographically for knee findings of OA.Results. The prevalence of tibiofemoral or patellofemoral OA based on radiographic examination was 3% in shooters, 29% in soccer players, 31% in weight lifters, and 14% in runners (P = 0.016 between groups).Soccer players had the highest prevalence of tibiofemoral OA (26%), and weight lifters had the highest prevalence of patellofemoral OA (28%). Subjects with radiographically documented knee OA had more symptoms, clinical findings, and functional limitations than did subjects without knee OA. By stepwise logistic regression analysis, the risk for having knee OA was increased in subjects with previous knee injuries (odds ratio [OR] 4.73), high body mass index at the age of 20 (OR 1.76/unit of increasing body mass index), previous

Risk factors for incident radiographic knee osteoarthritis in the elderly. The framingham study

“…Recent studies of runners (25)(26)(27)(28) reported that those who were highly physically active may face an increased risk of radiographic OA. Several small longitudinal studies (29,30) have shown no increased OA risk in runners.…”

Effects of High-Impact Training on Bone and Articular Cartilage: 12-Month Randomized Controlled Quantitative MRI Study

“…The impacts were analyzed at four acceleration levels according to the multiples of acceleration of gravity (g): low (0.3-2.4 g), moderate (2.5-3.8 g), high (3.9-5.3 g), and very high (5.4-9.8 g), where g ¼ 9.81 m/s 2 and 0 g is equated to standing still. (24) The maximum heart rate values were collected with monitors (Polar F6; Polar Electro Oy, Kempele, Finland) and the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) using the Borg scale (range, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. (25) …”

“…(7) Although the aforementioned study indicated a positive effect of exercise on articular cartilage, high-intensity loading and sports participation have been associated with joint injury and OA development. (9,10) Thus, what is controversial and poorly understood is the impact of exercise simultaneously on bone and cartilage. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to discover the effects of a 12-month highimpact exercise program in postmenopausal women with mild knee OA on bone mineral content (BMC) and knee cartilage indices using dGEMRIC and transverse relaxation time (T2) mapping.…”

Major public health benefits of physical activity

“…Several other studies report that moderate-intensity physical activity over time also does not seem to increase the risk of osteoarthritis (48 -51). However, long-term participation in high-impact sports (such as some track and field events) and torsional sports (such as football and racquet sports) has been associated with an increased incidence of osteoarthritis (49,(52)(53)(54). Some theories suggest that the increased risk of osteoarthritis among sport participants is related to joint injuries, not necessarily the activity itself.…”