Exercise increases osteophyte formation and diminishes fibrillation following chemically induced articular cartilage injury.

The present study shows that a treadmill exercise regimen imposed on guinea-pigs whose articular cartilage has been damaged by intra-articular injection of IA reduces chondrocyte depletion, results in an increase in pericellular Safranin-O staining around surviving chondrocytes, and prevents fibrillation of the articular surface. The data suggest that exercise protected, or facilitated recovery of, chondrocytes subjected to chemical injury, and that the surviving cells then synthesised a matrix which was sufficiently normal to withstand impulsive joint loading. On the other hand, the exercise regimen accelerated osteophyte formation, and led to formation of osteophytes in sites at which they did not develop in animals which received intra-articular IA but which were not exercised.