Life’s Aches and Pains – the Causes of Arthritis

If you have been diagnosed with arthritis, then you will want to know what causes it and what treatments are available.

The term comes from the two Greek words arthro and itis that mean joint and inflammation respectively, but then you probably know that anyway. To add to the confusion there are at least another ninety-nine forms of the disease, including rheumatoid arthritis.

The commonest form though is osteoarthritis, and we focus on this condition here. After you have read this article you will have a better understanding of the causes of arthritis that plagues you daily.

A Brief Definition of Osteoarthritis

Joints are the places where the bones in our upper arms and legs and so on link together to create movement. Movement means friction, and friction means wear, which is why Mother Nature fitted the contact points on our bones with a firm rubbery tissue called cartilage.

This lubricates our moving bits in the same way that oil protects the parts in our car engines, and prevents them from damaging each other. Under normal circumstances, our bodies keep our cartilage naturally healthy. If this process breaks down, the cartilage degenerates and dries out, and the bones begin to rub directly against each other.

This is what causes arthritis, and the stiffness, swellings and pain that accompany it. Take a look at a worn tyre in a motor scrap yard with the canvas showing through, and you may get a better idea of how worn cartilage could look.

Root Causes of Arthritis

There is no single clearly defined cause-and-effect explanation for arthritis and scientists rely on the presence of other factors to explain why it develops. A few things are quite clear though.

Although it cannot be said that age is one of the causes of arthritis, it is a proven fact that it usually appears in middle age, and that almost all of us have some signs of osteoarthritis by the time we have reached seventy, if we are spared to live that long.

We also know that after we pass the age of 55, more women than men are likely to develop the problem. But then not all men and women develop the disease, so we are not really any the wiser after all that investigation. Our genetic engineering may hold the key.

The Way We Treat Our Bodies Plays a Role

Reverting to the car tyres again, it stands to reason that if we treat them badly they will not last as long as we expect them to, and the same applies to our cartilages as well.

Scientists have determined that repeated sports injuries, and abuse like regular use of jackhammers and ballet dancers jumping up and down all day, correlate strongly with cartilage degeneration in the joints affected.

Until we know why their cartilages dried out and became less effective though, we cannot talk with any certainty of the actual causes of the arthritis that developed among these people.

Physical inactivity plays a role too. Lack of exercise weakens muscles supporting joints, reduces flexibility generally and is thought to make the person more prone to osteoarthritis too. Arthritis is also exacerbated by sufferers who are overweight, because their weight puts additional pressure on their degenerating joints.

Wrapping Up – Likely “Causes of Arthritis”

By now you will have realized that there is no simple cause-and-effect explanation for osteoarthritis and other forms of the disease.

Some ballet dancers develop it and it seems it might get worse if these slim people ever became overweight. If every person aged seventy had it severely, then we could say that aging was the clue.

Perhaps then, the explanation for the causes of arthritis is a combination of hereditary factors, and the influence of our environment, as is the case in so many other diseases too.