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TwitterReasons Why Knee Pain Can Deteriorate With Age
Over the next few decades, a significant percentage of the world’s population is likely to age and develop knee related problems. There have been several studies done around the world that have inferred that knee pain can be found more often among people who are 65 years and older than that.
According to some medical experts, knees should be looked at as other joints in a human body. Every day human beings fight gravity. With each step that they take, their joints succumb to some sort of wear and tear. As human beings live longer, they obviously take more steps and there can be a greater possibility of wear and tear in their joints.
However, old age may not be the sole reason for suffering from pain in the knee joints. There are certain other factors that act together with the aging factor to increase the possibilities of knee pain as you grow older.
Here are some of these key factors that contribute to your knee pain as you age.
Obesity - With the process of aging, if you have also put on weight as some people do, the additional pounds will put greater load on your knees that they may not be able to bear. Some experts say that your knees will then feel the negative impacts of additional wear and tear due to those extra pounds in your body. So being overweight apart from being old is also a big factor that can increase the chances of developing osteoarthritis.
Changes in body muscles - All human bodies in the age group of 20 to 60 may experience shrinkages in muscle sizes by as much as 40 percent. Due to this changing phenomenon in your body, you may end up losing strength. Your legs and hips muscles may acquire some of your legs’ forces that is the result of walking and various other physical activities. When you lose this all-important muscular support with your growing age, you become more exposed to the possibility of knee pain.
Osteoarthritis - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a study according to which about 14 percent of the total populations in the United States who are more than 24-years-old suffer from osteoarthritis. It is a common form of arthritis wherein your cartilage that acts as a protection for your bones start breaking down. Thus, your vulnerability to knee pain increases with passing years. As people reach the age of 65 or more, the percentage increases drastically to about 34 percent. According to studies done by some experts, in a majority of the cases, older people suffer from knee pain as they have osteoarthritis.
So if you are aging, it is better to be safe than to be sorry. You need to stay healthy and strong even in your old age to stay away from knee pain. Some of the steps for doing so are as follows:
Start losing weight - Since being overweight increases the possibility of developing knee pain with growing age, a sure way of staying fit is to start losing your weight.
Regular exercises - Adequate evidence support the fact that when you are into regular exercising, your knee pain can get reduced drastically.