What Causes Osteoarthritis?

Does bad posture cause arthritis? Well after 10 years in practice as a chiropractor, I believe that it does.

It’s not your age!

I saw a man age 52 yesterday who came in with leg pain. On examination it was obvious to me he had osteoarthritis in his lower back (loss of his back curve, very stiff on examination and loss of lower limb reflexes). When I explained, he suggested that it was ‘normal’ for his age (he’d been having symptoms since he was 44). ‘It isn’t your age.’ It is a combination of his manual work, bad posture and lifestyle (overweight, poor diet and too many units of alcohol). Arthritis may be more common in older people (52 isn’t old) but that is because their bad posture has gone unchecked and uncorrected for too long.

It is fairly simple really. Good posture means good alignment and symmetry which means less load and mechanical stress on body tissues (nerves, joints, muscles, bone). Bad posture means poor alignment and poor symmetry which means increased load and mechanical stresses on body tissues. Wolff’s Law tells us that increased loading causes bone to remodel. Remodelling of bone is osteoarthritis.

If osteoarthritis was due to ‘age’ then you’d get it everywhere in your body to the same degree but you don’t. You get osteoarthritis in the areas where the bony structures are under stress. Look at the pictures below. You will see that the places of greatest load are the places where bony remodelling (Understand Osteoarthritis) is occurring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Causes Of Osteoarthritis

• previous injury to joints (falls, car crashes, broken bones etc)
• congenital (born with) anomalies of bone
• bad posture habits
• diet (acidic foods encourage osteoarthritis-alcohol, caffeine, wheat, sugar, nicotine, fizzy drinks are all acidic) Alkaline Food Chart
• profession (manual)
• exercise levels & body weight