Smoking and Joint Health

This is an article from CNN Health that talks about smoking and the affect it has on one's joints. A study was done on almost 11,000 men in Australia that showed the longer men smoked, the less likely they were to need surgery to replace hips and knees that were damaged. Men who smoked for more than 48 years "were 42 to 51% less likely (depending on their age) to need the surgeries than men who had never smoked." The article says that other studies have been done that show a similar link in smoking and joint health but this was the first study done that shows a real relationship. There is no explanation for these findings however, they believe nicotine may play a role by stimulating activity in cells around joint cartilage.

The biggest thing that I took away from my college statistics class was that "correlation does not imply causation." While I find this article very interesting, I'm not sold that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship going on. I'm definitely interested in seeing more studies and more work being done on this and reading further into this theory.

This is the link to the original article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/08/smoking.protect.joints/index.html?hpt=he_c2

Here is a similar article of medpage today: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Orthopedics/Orthopedics/27461