Does cracking your knuckles really cause arthritis?
There is no evidence that it is the least bit harmful. It is often annoying to those who don’t crack their own knuckles, and perhaps that is partly where the myth that it is harmful started. What is happening is that when you seperate two bones by pulling or sharply bending, you are creating a space almost like a vacuum. There is a small bag of synovial fluid that stretches and a small bubble of carbon dioxide is released inside it. This is what produces the cracking noise.
It takes a few minutes for this CO2 to dissolve back into the synovial fluid which is why you can’t crack your joints again too soon afterwards.
Source: SixWise.com and Wikipedia.
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