There are two types of people: those who crack their knuckles relentlessly and those, like me, who never crack their knuckles unless by accident. I have never understood the point in cracking knuckles. I don’t feel any more limber or loose after bending my digits, nor am I found of the sound the process makes.
Now, if you’re one of those people who loves to c rack his or knuckles, then you have no doubt been told (numerous times) that doing so is BAD FOR YOU. It will lead to early Arthritis! So on and so on.
Well, new research reveals that no, crackling your knuckles has no bearing on the health of your hands, no evidence that it leads to Arthritis, so you can tell those people to shut up once and for all.
Unger undertook his self and righteous research because, as he wrote, “During the author’s childhood, various renowned authorities (his mother, several aunts and, later, his mother-in-law [personal communication]) informed him that cracking his knuckles would lead to arthritis of the fingers.” He thus used a half-century “to test the accuracy of this hypothesis,” during which he could cleverly tell any unsolicited advice givers that the results weren’t in yet.
Finally, after five decades, Unger analyzed his data set: “There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands.” He concluded that “there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.” Evidence for whether the doctor himself was cracked may be that he traveled all the way from his California home to Harvard University to pick up his Ig Nobel Prize in person.
Actually other scholarly studies of the phenomenon had been done. Responding to the Unger paper, Robert Swezey, M.D., wrote to the journal to report that his own 1975 study—co-authored by his then 12-year-old son in an apparent attempt to get the kid’s grandma to stop the kvetching over the cracking—also found no crack case for arthritis. Swezey further consulted Rand Corporation statistician John Adams, who noted that “it appears that the [Unger] study was not blinded. Blinding would only be possible if the investigator didn’t know left from right. This is not likely since studies indicate that only 31 percent of primary care physicians don’t know left from right.”
