Cracking your fingers causes an increased chance of developing Arthritis

Question

There is no evidence to support the claim that cracking your knuckles will cause Arthritis. It is simply a popping of a bubble of the synovial fluid. Cracking your knuckles has no positive effect, but it certainly doesn't lead to arthritis. The worst case scenario would be a decrease in grip strength so it is a habit you want to break.

Answer 1

First thing I noticed when fact checking is that this was put out by the Harvard Medical School which seems like it would be a very trusted source to get information from, and after doing more research, they normally tend to be truthful and have backed up evidence behind everything they say. The date on this article reads July of 2020 and I would doubt any new developments have come up since then, so it is still relatively new in this regard. One noticeable thing is that there is no author which means this was conducted by a group of people, which still makes this seem believable, especially since there does not seem to be any biases around the issue with the Harvard Medical School. Lastly, many different trusted sources seem to give the same answer as this article, including Northwestern Medicine, and Houston Methodist.

Comments

How would you rate this claim? Always mention it clearly within your fact-check and select a rating. Also please provide hyperlinks to your sources. Thanks!

Answer 2

The source provided claims that there is no evidence that cracking your knuckles can cause an increased chance of developing arthritis. Instead, it says that, "The "pop" of a cracked knuckle is caused by bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid — the fluid that helps lubricate joints," and while it doesn't have a positive affect, it does not lead to arthritis. The source that claims this is the Harvard Health publishing journal or health.harvard.edu. Harvard is considered to be the number one university in the world for education and research, and the website is also a .edu site. These two facts show that it is a reputable source whose information is backed up and more than likely throughly researched. Another key detail about the article is that there is not one singular author, meaning that it was likely written by a research group which helps balance out bias. When I search up the claim on google multiple other sites also support the fact that cracking knuckles does not cause arthritis, including trusted sources like Northwestern Medicine and John Hopkins Arthritis Center. Also, the article was posted in 2020, which in terms of medical information/studies is rather recent, and therefore also adds to the legitimacy. In conclusion, with evidence from reputable sources, cracking your knuckles does not cause arthritis.