Many consider arthritis to be an inevitable part of growing old, but new research shows how a habit of bike riding can lower the risk of associated knee pain by up to 20%.
The study, published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, investigated the relationship between a history of bike riding and knee osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and is characterised by the degeneration of joint tissue and resulting pain, which worsens over time. It most commonly affects the knee joint.
More than one in five Australians aged 45 and over live with osteoarthritis.
The Osteoarthritis Initiative, a multi-centre longitudinal, observational study of knee osteoarthritis of people ages 45 to 79, tapped into data on more than 2600 participants. Scientists from a number of US universities collaborated on the study.
As part of their participation in the program, subjects were surveyed on 37 different physical activities and how often they engaged in each during four periods of their lives: ages 12-18; 19-34; 35-49; and 50 and older.
The study authors used these responses to group participants into four categories of bike riders, ranging from those who never rode at all, to low-, medium- and high-frequency riders.
More than half the participants (52%) had ridden a bike at some point in their lives, and this group was found to have less self-reported knee pain and x-ray evidence and symptoms of osteoarthritis.
The researchers found this was even more pronounced among people who rode a bike regularly across all age periods.
“Compared to non-bicyclers, bicyclers were 17% less likely to have frequent knee pain, 9% percent less likely to have ROA (radiographic osteoarthritis), and 21% less likely to have SOA (symptomatic radiographic osteoarthritis) compared to non-bicyclers,” says first author of the paper Dr Grace Lo.
“Additionally, each increase in the number of age periods engaged in bicycling resulted in lower likelihood of reporting knee pain, ROA and SOA.”
The study is observational and cannot prove a causal link, but does strengthen the case for bike riding as a low-impact tool for preventative health.
The authors do note the risk of recall bias in the study as the survey responses were provided retrospectively, though they consider this to be minimal as respondents were unaware of their hypothesis when completing the questionnaire.
They also note that the same method has been used independently to investigate the effects of other leisure activities like running and swimming on knee pain and osteoarthritis.
“The natural history of osteoarthritis is very long, making it difficult to track the different exercises you’ll do throughout your life as well as their impact on joint health,” Lo says.
“The big takeaway from this observational study is that if people are concerned about knee pain, ROA and SOA later in life, biking may serve as a way to prevent this and that the more often they do it throughout their lives, the higher the probability of better knee health.”
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