Doctor Explains Why You Shouldn’t Crack Your Knuckles

For some, there's no better feeling than cracking your knuckles and for others, just the sound of it is pure cringeworthy.

He claims that those knuckle-crackers could lose up to 75 percent of their grip, which would be a real struggle to open up jars and such.

The doctor said: "Now have you heard people say that cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis?

"Well, when you're putting your finger to crack your joint, you make the joint space, the space between the bones bigger, and this sucks the ligaments in and it makes a gas bubble pop into existence.

"However, the energy released is only about 7% of what you need to damage the cartilage."

While potentially debunking arthritis theories, he added: "One study involves the doctor cracking the joints of his left hand for 50 years, half a century, oh my god, at the end, no difference in arthritis between this hand and that hand, but one person is not an adequate sample size.

"Another study looked at 300 people who cracked the knuckles on both hands for 35 years and guess what?

"They had no extra cases of arthritis, but they had slightly swollen joints which of itself is no big deal and the grip strength was about one quarter of what it should have been.

"So there's no strong evidence that cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis.

"However, it could make it difficult to unscrew a jar of Vegemite."

One user commented: "Sending this to my mother IMMEDIATELY," while another added: "Brb showing this to my mum to finally prove her wrong,"

A third joked: "I’m gonna get cracking," to which the doctor – rather kindly – replied: "You're funny!!"

Someone else sarcastically quipped: "It may not damage the fingers, but you can get damaged by people hitting you because they hate hearing it."

Dr Karl simply responded to the comment with a clapping hands emoji.