About one in ten in the entire population is laid low with osteoarthritis in this country alone each year. And as every woman who suffers from any kind of joint disease knows, it is the knee women have the most instances of degenerative disease occur in. But here is some decidedly positive news in the midst of all the depressing knowledge of how tenacious joint disease is among older women. A study recently done by the CDC finds that if women could manage to build their thigh muscles up to be strong and capable, they could help support their knee cartilage - the part of the knee that normally takes on the entire job of supporting the body all on its own. With help from the kind of support strong thigh muscles are able to lend the knees, the pain and stiffness women feel could often be very well avoided.
Orthopedic doctors have always known that the thigh muscles, technically called the quadriceps, have the power and the strategic position that they are able to help the knee joint in the everyday motions involved in getting up out of a chair and walking. What the new study tells them is that stronger quadriceps could possibly help the knee joint from developing osteoarthritis in the first place. If you wish to read that report, you'll find it in last year's September issue of Arthritis Care and Research. The study basically followed thousands of older men and women over two years and had them exercise their thigh muscles well enough that they could strengthen them. What they did find was, that the chances women had of getting to have painful arthritis were easily proven to be lower when women had strong thigh muscles.
As a practical matter, it is painful arthritis of the knee women need most to avoid; and these findings certainly do show the direction in which to head. Men, unfortunately, do not seem to gain as much from exercise of the thigh muscles. They need to do more work in this area to find out if you could do this when you're young, and avoid painful arthritis altogether as you grow older. If you are a woman and you are beginning to feel the effects of knee joint pain coming on, a few simple leg exercises to help strengthen your knees and your thighs could do wonders for you. The best exercise they can think of here, is stair climbing.
The stair climbing exercises they recommend don't need to be done with any great vigor. The activity just needs to be slow and steady, and needs to not stress the knee too much. The pain in the knee women feel with osteoarthritis-related wear and tear is easily managed with this kind of preventive therapy. Not only can you look forward to stronger and more pain-free knee joints, you can look forward to better independence. Walking and stair climbing are your ticket to a healthier life and to pain-free knees through old age.
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