Does cracking your knuckles really give you arthritis?

When you’re feeling a bit tense or nervous, it’s not unusual to crack your knuckles.

It may even be something you do for fun or heard other people do when you were growing up. Some people crack knuckles to help themselves feel calmer when nervous, while others get annoyed by the sound, and it’s led to various claims and myths about what it can do to your bones. The most popular of these claims is that cracking your knuckles can give you arthritis.

Is cracking your knuckles bad for you?

Is this true? Well, BBC Bitesize Other Side of the Story turned to two of the best people we know to answer a question like this - Dr Chris and Dr Xand from Operation Ouch!.

Firstly, Dr Chris explained what actually happens when we crack our knuckles. He said: “What we’re pretty sure is happening is that there’s gas dissolved in the fluid of in the joint. When you change the pressure, little bubbles form and then they snap shut and that’s what causes the cracking.”

It's not just Dr Chris who can give this explanation. Take a look online and on socials and you can find hundreds of posts and articles saying the same thing. This doesn't stop some people from speculating that cracking knuckles can give you arthritis, however. TikTok videos on the subject also debunk the myth, as well as making jokes about knuckle cracking and even some soothing knuckle-based ASMR.

What is arthritis?

Arthritis is a condition which affects the joints that connect our bones together. They are lined by something called cartilage which allows the joints to move around easily. Different types of arthritis can affect this cartilage, making it inflamed, or thinner, and this makes it more difficult - and painful - for the joints and bones to move.

Does knuckle cracking cause arthritis?

It looks like this is a myth.

Dr Chris gave an example which could explain why. He said: “In order to answer that question, science has had to do lots and lots of experiments. The most famous of which is a doctor, who cracked all of the knuckles on one hand for many, many years and didn’t crack any knuckles on the other hand for many, many years - and didn’t see any difference in the rate of arthritis in the two hands.”

Although that is just one example, there are others on socials where trusted medical sources, including official university accounts, state that cracking knuckles does not give people arthritis. There have also been three major studies into any links between the two carried out in the USA; in 1975, 1990 and 2011. In all three, no link was found between arthritis and cracking knuckles.

This myth is an example of misinformation, a piece of fake news that has been spread by people who may not realise that it is untrue. This is different to disinformation, where people spread information that they know is untrue. It's not unusual to see health misinformation spread on social media - so much so that platforms such as TikTok have their own guides on how to check if the information given in posts is correct, such as checking for a verified source. Other Side of the Story also has a guide on how to tell if a social media account is genuine.

If you do have any health questions, it's always worth seeing what advice reputable health organisations, such as the NHS, offer on their websites.

This article was published in October 2025

Not sure if the news you’re seeing on social media is true or false? Can you always tell if the things you see online are real or fake? Learn how to get the other side of the story with our quizzes, videos and explainers.