How can women prevent arthritis?

Whenever we get a minor joint pain, we reach out to orthopedic doctors and get it resolved with minor treatment. However, arthritis pain is a different and worse than minor joint pain. Arthritis pain starts when the cartilage wears away. Simply put, the cartilage is a rubbery cushion that rests between the joints. This rubbery cushion absorbs the shock when bones hit against themselves, and also allows the bones to glide in a smooth way. However, when the cartilage wears away, there is nothing left between the joints for protection. Hence, the joints start rubbing against on another, and this results in pain.

According to a number of surveys, more than 46 million people in the united states live with this condition. And out of these, 61 percent of the patients happen to be females. Hence, it is likely that arthritis tends to affect women more often than it affects men.

One reason for this would be the physical differences between men and women. For instance, women tend to have a lesser amount of knee cartilage in comparison to men.

How to prevent arthritis in women?

So, what can women do to prevent arthritis? When it comes to its prevention, there are many risk factors involved that women often ignore. In this article, we put together all of these risk factors for you, so that you can start living a healthy and arthritis-free life. These include:

Main the right body weight

While it may not sound like a big deal, but excess amount of body weight is shown to be one of the major causes of arthritis. This is primarily because when you have a higher amount of upper body weight, your joints in the knee and toes are likely to suffer a great pressure. Now the greater this pressure is, the quicker the cartilage between the bones starts to wear away.

According to doctors, 1 extra pound of body weight results in 4 pounds of pressure on our hips and knee joints. So, by even cutting off a single pound, you will make a big difference.

Avoid high heels

While high heels do look good, the human feet are not designed to be on the toes throughout the day. Obviously, this is a fact that shoe shoppers and fashion designers tend to ignore. This is the prime reason why a big number of women tend to suffer from arthritis later on in their lives.

Indeed, your body will be much happier if you happen to trade your heels with something that is far friendlier to your joints.

Workout

In order to prevent arthritis, focus more on non-impact exercises. This is because high impact exercises tend to put women at a greater risk of arthritis. Since the amount of cartilage in their bones is already less, high impact exercises wear it off pretty quickly. This is the prime reasons why most physiotherapists also ask women to do non-impact exercises only.

Fortunately, there are many beneficial non-impact exercises that can keep you fit. These include biking and swimming. Other water-based exercises may also be great. Apart from that, body weight exercises that do not involve jumping or impact are also great.

Conclusion

Since data has proven that women are at a greater risk of suffering from arthritis, they need to take special care. By using the tips that we have provided above, you can truly bring a huge change in your life. Trust us, you will be thankful later. Nevertheless, in case you have a knee pain, reach out to the nearest knee specialist Woodbridge immediately. The sooner you figure out the cause, the better it will be.

 

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