Noisy knees may be an early sign of osteoarthritis

A four-year US study of 3,495 patients reported in Arthritis Care and Research found over three quarters of the 636 patients who developed osteoarthritis had signs of osteoarthritis on X-ray but no knee pain at the start of the study.

The odds of developing osteoarthritis were higher the greater the frequency of a grating sound in the joint. The study leader Grace Lo, from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, said that future studies “hold the promise of identifying interventions that can prevent knee pain”.