I am referring to the great work done by America's (your) Jim Fries on the benefits of running. For so many years Drs, Specialists, and Research Scientist Drs (PhD's) have demonised running as a leading cause of osteoarthritis. Jim Fries from Stanford University has been attacking their research for the past thirty years with good solid research of his own, and he is changing the landscape forever. Here is his first effort in 2002.
BBC News World Edition
Wednesday, 16 October, 2002, 10:15 GMT 11:15 UK
Running 'protects against arthritis'
Runner
'Painless' running helps health
Running can offer up to 12 years protection from the onset of osteoarthritis, doctors have said.
People who exercise often are less likely to develop the condition than inactive "couch potatoes", they say.
Osteoarthritis is traditionally thought of as developing from "wear and tear" on the joints.
Painless running or other activities which are aerobic and make you fit help keep you vigorous for longer
Professor Jim Fries, Stanford University
But US researchers say it is only the "tearing" or injury that is the problem.
They found that those who get the most benefit run between six and 20 miles a week.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative form of joint disease, which affects around two million people in the UK.
Disability
The researchers, from Stanford University, California studied 538 members of a running club and 423 people who never did any exercise.
All were aged around 58 and had similar levels of health when the study began in 1984.
Each year, they were assessed by doctors for disability and pain.
The progression of osteoarthritis was checked using X-rays and doctors looked for signs of osteoporosis.
By the end of the study, 20% of those who took no exercise had pain and disability compared to 5% of the runners.
Runners also had greater bone density and less bone mineral loss.
Amongst non-runners, women were more likely to experience disability than men.
Twisting
Professor Jim Fries, an expert in healthy ageing who led the research, told a national newspaper: "We know now that painless running or other activities which are aerobic and make you fit help keep you vigorous for longer.
Sitting around and being a couch potato is the worst thing you can do for your health
Arthritis Research Campaign spokeswoman
"You are four times better off in avoiding disability, and that's what we all worry about."
Professor Fries, who presented his research to a medical conference in Sorrento, Italy, added: "Running or jogging does not increase the risk of osteoarthritis, even though traditionally we thought it was a disease of wear and tear.
"It's the wearing that's OK and not the tearing, because it's important to avoid injury."
But he said the same was not true of activities which involved tears around the joints, caused by twisting and turning, such as football.
Professor Fries added: "This accelerates the development of osteoarthritis, particularly of the knee.
"Even ballet dancers are at increased risk for osteoarthritis - at the base of the big toe."
Damage
A spokeswoman for the Arthritis Research Campaign told BBC News Online: "It's certainly a myth that exercise wears out joints, but excessive running can put the joints under a lot of strain, and may lead to injuries.
"Footballers are at greater risk of osteoarthritis than runners, because of the damage they do to their joints from injury."
She added: "If you've already got a painful knee because of osteoarthritis we'd recommend that you did a less weight-bearing form of exercise such as swimming or cycling.
"Sitting around and being a couch potato is the worst thing you can do for your health - whether or not you've got arthritis, and exercise is probably the best thing."
But Neil Betteridge, of Arthritis Care, said: "Everybody's experience of arthritis is unique.
"It's probably too simple to be clearly for or against running in terms of how arthritis may develop.
"For someone with no cartilage or who is obese, it could easily be very damaging to be running, so people should always take advice from their doctor."
Mr Betteridge added: "It's encouraging to have it confirmed that aerobic exercise is beneficial for the bones and joints."
Philip Newton, director of the Lilleshall Sports Injury Centre in Shropshire, said running did benefit the joints because it was weight-bearing exercise, and encouraged the lubrication of joints through the production of synovial fluid.
He added: "Most of us lead fairly sedentary lives, so running and sport probably makes up for that, and redresses the balance a bit.
Professor Jim Fries turns 70 later this year and has continually run from the age of 30 years and he shows no signs of knee damage. Here is the latest up-date on his research, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Running eases the aches of aging: study
New research has found fewer disabilities and a reduction in premature mortality among long-time runners
* Article
* Comments (Comment5)
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ANNE-MARIE TOBIN
The Canadian Press
August 12, 2008 at 10:36 AM EDT
Some benefits of regular running appear to be illustrated by a small study released yesterday, which began tracking people over the age of 50 in 1984.
People who ran an average of about four hours a week when the study started were compared with a control group of healthy people who weren't regular runners. After 21 years of follow-up, researchers have found that everyone has more ailments, but the onset of such problems began later for the runners.
"They begin to get the earliest forms of disability about 16 years later than do the controls," said James Fries, senior author of the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"They have the same or fewer knee replacements or destroyed knees. They have less musculoskeletal pain, they spend less money on medical care expenses, and by any metric that you use, they have benefited from their lifelong exercise habit."
The study found that people who run regularly, such as septuagenarian marathon runner Ed Whitlock, tend to stay healthy longer.
Enlarge Image
The study found that people who run regularly, such as septuagenarian marathon runner Ed Whitlock, tend to stay healthy longer. (TIbor Kolley/The Globe and Mail)
The Globe and Mail
Dr. Fries, a professor of medicine at Stanford University's school of medicine, said his findings don't stand alone and are "entirely consistent" with those of other researchers who have addressed the question.
But back in 1980, it was a slightly different world.
At that time, Dr. Fries proposed a theory of aging called the compression of morbidity, which was published in a journal, suggesting that we should try to prolong a high-quality life and push the onset of chronic disability as far into advanced age as possible.
He thought humans should "compress the morbidity of the average life into a shorter and shorter period between when the disability comes and when one dies."
"This was a radical change in the way people were then thinking about it, and there were no real data," he explained in an interview from Stanford, Calif.
And so Dr. Fries embarked on this project, which began with annual self-administered questionnaires filled in by 538 members of a U.S. running club and 423 healthy controls from northern California who were 50 years and older, beginning in 1984.
Altogether, 284 runners and 156 controls were still in the study after 21 years. Causes of death were determined through to 2003 using the National Death Index.
Nineteen years into the study, 15 per cent of runners had died compared with 34 per cent of controls. Mortality data were available for all subjects through the death index even if participants had previously withdrawn from the study.
As for now, Dr. Fries reported that about two-thirds of those in the running group are still running.
"The other third for the most part changed to other vigorous athletic activities, and they changed for the reasons you wouldn't have thought. They changed because they moved away or they lost their running partner - everything but knee pain. They never changed for knee pain, almost never," he said.
Some became serious swimmers or serious cyclists, or they would work out, he said.
"They kept the habit of exercise, although some people got bored with running and quit because they were bored."
Jo Welch, assistant professor of kinesiology at Dalhousie University, said the findings by Dr. Fries and colleagues "completely make sense to me."
"If we can deal with prevention of medical treatment through looking after ourselves better, exercising vigorously, eating well, those sorts of factors, then it makes sense that we'll have reduced disability and premature mortality," she said from Halifax.
"We're all going to die some day, but we want to compress that to the final days of our life, if we can."
Dr. Fries said there are a number of health policy lessons that could be gleaned from his study.
"I suppose the simplest one is that vigorous serious exercise regularly over a lifetime - swapping off into another exercise if you have some difficulty with one of the exercises - is a very, very good way to go."
Dr. Fries, who turns 70 later this month, has been running since he was 30, and has done a number of marathons.
"My knees are fine," he said.
This man practices what he preaches.
Cheers from Oz
