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George E. Ehrlich, MD
CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Summit, NJ

JAMA. 1986;256(6):715.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The studies of the relationship between running and osteoarthritis,^1,2 which failed to find a generative joint disease in runners, are, despite disclaimers, examples of membership bias.³ "Membership in a group may imply a degree of health which differs systematically from that of the general population."³ In these instances, those who habitually run may have better alignment, more resilient joints, or a host of other factors that militate against development of osteoarthritis, while the remainder, in the community at large, especially those who do not run or who have given up running, may not possess these wholesome properties. Only a prospective study of large populations of runners and nonrunners, carried out for many years and identifying all conceivable factors, will ultimately be able to answer this question. I maintain that those who habitually run long distances are predisposed to do so in their joints, in . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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