Lifelong moderate running training increases the incidence and severity of osteoarthritis in the knee joint of C57BL mice

✍ Scribed by Lapveteläinen, T. ;Nevalainen, T. ;Parkkinen, J. J. ;Arokoski, J. ;Kiraly, K. ;Hyttinen, M. ;Halonen, P. ;Helminen, H. J.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 866 KB
• Volume: 242
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-276X
• DOI: 10.1002/ar.1092420204

✦ Synopsis

Background: Inbred C57BL male mice express a high incidence of spontaneous osteoarthritis of the knee joint at the age of 18 months. We used this strain of mice to find out the effects of life-long, moderate running exercise on the health of articular cartilage and the incidence of osteoarthritis.

Methods: Male mice (294) were divided into controls and runners. The runners were trained daily between 2 and 18 months of age. The speed was 13.3 d m i n and the distance on a flatbelt treadmill was 1,000 m/day. The mice were sacrificed at the ages of 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 months. The knee joints were sectioned in frontal direction and the osteoarthritic changes were graded using a conventional light microscope. The reproducibility of the grading method was tested by calculating the extended K-coefficient for the results of six researchers.

Results: The incidence of osteoarthritis at the age of 18 months increased from 72% in controls to 88% in runners in the medial tibial condyles (P < 0.05), and from 80 to 96% in the lateral tibial condyles (P < 0.001). The incidence of the most severe osteoarthritic changes rose from 16% in controls to 36% in runners in the medial tibial condyles, and from 4 to 36% in the lateral tibial condyles.

Conclusion:

According to our results, the moderate, longlasting running exercise accelerates the development of osteoarthritis in the knee joints of C57BL mice.