Question: what causes arthritis and how are some more prone than others to get it?

Camille Parsons answered on 20 Jun 2018:

There are lots of different types of arthritis but we can roughly divide them into the inflammatory type and non-inflammatory type. An example of an inflammatory arthritis is rheumatoid arthritis which happens when our immune system (which is there to fight infections) goes wrong and attacks our own joints. This can happen to younger people and generally the propensity for this to happen is inherited (in our genes).

Osteoarthritis is usually a non-inflammatory type. As we get older our joints can wear down with repeated use (think about how the tread on a bike or car tyre wears away the more we ride our bikes or drive our cars). This type therefore usually happens in older people as they have lived longer and therefore used their joints more, it also tends to happen in people who are overweight as there is more strain on the joints. Some people wear down there joints at a younger age and we again think genetics plays into this.