Arthritic Knee? Take a Walk

Lo, who is also chief of rheumatology at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, noted that walking offers additional health benefits to older adults without the cost or risk of side effects that medications often come with.

“People diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis should walk for exercise, particularly if they do not have daily knee pain,” Lo said. “If you already have daily knee pain, there still might be a benefit, especially if you have the kind of arthritis where your knees are bow-legged.”

What the study did

For the source of their data, the researchers turned to the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), a 10-year multicenter observational study of men and women, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Participants in the OAI, who were enrolled from 2004 to 2006, self-reported the amount of time and frequency they walked for exercise. Among the 1,212 participants, 73 percent reported 10 or more instances of walking for exercise at age 50 and older (they were classified as walkers). The remaining 27 percent were labeled nonwalkers.

Participants were asked about knee pain at various times during the OAI study. At the start of it, they also had radiographic images taken, which determined that they had osteoarthritis in at least one knee. Additional radiographs were taken three and four years after subjects enrolled in the study. Participants were also questioned about the frequency of pain that they experienced in their knees.

Those who initially did not have frequent knee pain (pain, aching or stiffness on most days) but who reported frequent pain four years later were considered to have “new frequent knee pain.” The researchers also assessed whether the X-rays showed that a participant’s arthritis had worsened on the “medial” or inner side of the joint. They found “medial joint space narrowing” was less common among walkers.

“The findings from our study provide a glimmer of hope that there may be an inexpensive intervention that modifies the structure and symptoms related to osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis and a source of substantial disability,” the researchers concluded.