No Pills, No Surgery: Scientists Discover Simple Way To Relieve Arthritis Pain
Evan Lerner on SciTechDaily, Aug 2025
“A new study led by a Utah engineering professor shows that gait retraining can reduce pain and slow cartilage damage.
Almost one in four adults over the age of 40 live with painful osteoarthritis, a condition that has become one of the leading causes of disability. The disease gradually wears away the cartilage that cushions joints, and there is currently no way to restore this damage. For now, treatment typically focuses on pain management with medication, followed eventually by joint replacement.
Scientists from the University of Utah, New York University, and Stanford University are now pointing to a promising alternative: gait retraining.
In a year-long randomized controlled trial, participants who adjusted the angle of their foot while walking reported pain relief comparable to medication. Importantly, these individuals also showed slower cartilage deterioration in their knees compared with those who received a placebo treatment.
Published in The Lancet Rheumatology and co-led by Scott Uhlrich of Utah’s John and Marcia Price College of Engineering, these findings come from the first placebo-controlled study to demonstrate the effectiveness of a biomechanical intervention for osteoarthritis.
“We’ve known that for people with osteoarthritis, higher loads in their knee accelerate progression, and that changing the foot angle can reduce knee load,” said Uhlrich, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “So the idea of a biomechanical intervention is not new, but there have not been randomized, placebo-controlled studies to show that they’re effective…”
