Noisy knees? Arthritis may be in your future

If your knees creak and pop, the noises could be an indicator of early arthritis, even if the joint does not hurt, according to one of the first long-term studies of the association between noisy knees and joint disease.

But not every creaky knee is diseased, the study also finds, making it important to try to discern what your particular knee noises may mean.

For many of us, developing grinding, popping or creaking sounds in our knees can seem almost like a rite of passage into middle age. Tens of millions of people over the age of 40 report that they at least occasionally hear noises in their knees, a condition that in medical circles goes by the ominous name of crepitus.

Researchers and clinicians have long been undecided about whether the onset of knee crepitus also signals the beginnings of arthritis, with its slow but relentless deterioration of cartilage and bones, or if the noises are annoying but otherwise benign.

The results of past studies of associations between crepitus and arthritis have been conflicting, with some indicating a strong likelihood that someone whose knees pop also has underlying arthritis and others showing little consistent relationship. Many of these studies, however, looked at people's knees at one point in time, leaving the fundamental relationship between crepitus and the onset of arthritis, especially over the years, in doubt.

So for the new study, which was published this month in Arthritis Care & Research and funded primarily through the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, a group of researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and other institutions decided to focus on the long-term health of the knees of almost 3,500 participants in Osteoarthritis Initiative.