New study raises doubts about whether rain exacerbates joint pain

The common perception that rainy weather can influence a person's experience of joint pain has been called into question by a new US study.

Research led by the University of Washington's Health Sciences division and Harvard University used Google Trends to assess daily summaries of local weather data from 2011 to 2015 in the 50 most populous US cities, and correlating these with online searches for information on hip pain, knee pain and arthritis.

It was found that knee and hip pain searches increased as temperatures rose until it grew uncomfortably hot, whereas rainy days tended to slightly reduce search volumes for joint pain.

This suggested that changes in physical activity levels were primarily responsible for the search trends, rather than any association between rain and joint pain.

Scott Telfer, a researcher in orthopaedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said: "You hear people with arthritis say they can tell when the weather is changing. But with past studies, there's only been vague associations, nothing very concrete, and our findings align with those."

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