Elizabeth Hofheinz, M.P.H., M.Ed. • Fri, December 16th, 2016

Lace up! New research from Brigham Young University (BYU) has found that running can protect knees. Matt Seeley, Ph.D., A.T.C., is associate professor of exercise science at BYU. He and BYU colleagues Sarah Ridge, Ph.D., and Ty Hopkins, Ph.D., have found that running reduces inflammation in the joint.

“It flies in the face of intuition,” said Dr. Seeley, associate professor of exercise science at BYU, in the December 8, 2016 news release. “This idea that long-distance running is bad for your knees might be a myth.”

Their study, published in the December 2016 edition of European Journal of Applied Physiology, also involved Dr. Eric Robinson from Intermountain Healthcare. The scientists measured inflammation markers in the knee joint fluid of several healthy men and women aged 18-35, both before and after running.

“The researchers found that the specific markers they were looking for in the extracted synovial fluid—two cytokines named GM-CSF and IL-15—decreased in concentration in the subjects after 30 minutes of running. When the same fluids were extracted before and after a non-running condition, the inflammation markers stayed at similar levels.”

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