Flex your fingers every day and take home the Nobel Prize

There is a way to show off your power at the lowest cost. You don’t need to use any tools. Just stand in front of that person and crack your knuckles until they make a crackling sound. Your aura will immediately come out.

Cracking your fingers is not only a deterrent, it has penetrated into our lives. When you are bored and have nothing to do, crack your fingers and hear the crisp sound of your knuckles, which is comfortable and stress-relieving.

But if you often crack your fingers at home, you may be greeted by your elders:

" If you bend your knuckles too much, you'll get arthritis! "

Although most children don’t agree with it in their hearts, they will still stop and secretly snap their fingers when there are no elders around.

But there was an American boy who refused to believe it. He bent his fingers stubbornly for 50 years despite the pressure, just to make his mother stop nagging him about this matter.

This guy is Donald Unger, a medical doctor. When he was in his 20s, he liked to crack his fingers and thought it was a very cool behavior.

But every time, his mother, aunt and other elders would pour cold water on him. They kept telling him that bending his fingers was not good and would cause arthritis. But the young and energetic Donald would never listen.

So I decided to use myself as an experiment, bending my fingers at least twice a day, and then after a few years, overturn the opinions of my elders.

Unexpectedly, this experiment lasted for 50 years. Our little Tang gradually became old Tang. During these 50 years, he would crack the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, but never crack the knuckles of his right hand. This formed a natural control group.

After 50 years of tireless experimentation, by 1998, he had cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least 36,500 times.

But whether it was observed with the naked eye or X-rayed, there was nothing wrong with Donald's left hand. Not to mention arthritis, there was not even ordinary swelling of the fingers.

When he found out that there was no difference between his left and right hands, he excitedly published the results of this half-century-long experiment in a paper.

Although the experiment in the paper sounds absurd and funny, at that time, there was very little research on whether there was a connection between arthritis and finger cracking. However, some people tacitly assumed that there was a connection between the two.

So once the paper came out, it received a lot of attention. His finger-bending experiment also became a very famous study. As a result, Donald Unger won the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize.

On the podium, he even shouted to his mother: "Look, you are wrong, can I stop eating broccoli?" (Studies have shown that eating broccoli can prevent arthritis)

Cauliflower may prevent arthritis, study suggests

Although Donald's experiment solved a difficult problem at the time, the conclusion drawn based on his own hands was not rigorous. So in 2011, 215 subjects participated in an experiment to study the correlation between finger bending and hand osteoarthritis.

The results showed that there was no significant correlation between finger cracking and arthritis , which strongly confirmed Donald's point of view.

Some people may wonder, there is a "clicking" sound when you bend your fingers, which sounds like two knuckles hitting each other hard. Will bending your fingers for a long time really have no effect?

You should know that there is a joint cavity at the junction of each of our joints, which is filled with synovial fluid. These synovial fluids will play a role in lubrication and cushioning when the joints move, avoiding damage caused by daily activities.

When our joints move, the synovial fluid in the cavity moves with it. When it moves, gas will be released, and then some small bubbles will gradually form in the joint cavity.

When we bend our fingers, the bubbles burst instantly, making a crisp sound. This is the source of the "crackling" sound when we bend our fingers.

After the bubbles in the joint cavity are squeezed out, it usually takes more than ten minutes for new bubbles to appear. This is why there will be no sound if we break it for the second time right away.

Sometimes we can hear a sound when we stretch our fingers. This is because a tiny cavity filled with gas is created in the process of stretching the fingers, and then it immediately bursts and makes a sound.

It takes a certain amount of time for the gas to dissolve again in the synovial fluid of the joint, so you can't pull the trigger a second time immediately.

Anyway, it's just a little trick played by the gas in the joints, and the "pop" sound is very similar to the sound of squeezing plastic bubbles, so it has the same decompression effect. However, cracking your fingers is more convenient, so more people are keen on it.

Once we figure out where the sound of cracking your fingers comes from, we can almost confirm that it has nothing to do with arthritis, because cracking your fingers does not violently hit your joints to make a sound. Arthritis is basically only related to factors such as family history of genetic diseases, heavy labor experience, and previous joint trauma.

And not only does it have no effect, it also has unexpected benefits. After the sound of snapping your fingers, the surrounding capillaries and peripheral nerves are stimulated, local blood circulation increases, which can help reduce inflammation and relieve spasms.

But I still want to remind my friends that although cracking your fingers is good, you must control the strength!!!