Many people believe there is a connection between the weather and joint or muscle pain, but a team of researchers from the Kolling Institute and the University of Sydney say their latest study has found there is no link between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lead author Professor Manuela Ferreira said there is a longstanding belief that changes in weather conditions, such as rain or temperature variations, can trigger or worsen muscle and joint pain, but based on their analyses, they have found the weather has no direct influence on the most common musculoskeletal conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cWe looked at data from over 15,000 people from seven different countries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTogether, these people reported over 28,000 episodes of pain, mostly back pain, knee or hip osteoarthritis. We also included people with rheumatoid arthritis and gout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe then looked at the frequency of those pain reports in different types of weather, hot, cold, humid, dry, rainy and found no difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn other words, people do not experience more pain or pain flares when it is hot, or cold, or humid or raining suggesting there is no direct link between the weather and joint or muscle pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only exception was gout where we found hot and dry weather can increase the risk of a flare in people with gout.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Professor Ferreira said the study highlights a wider issue that even though more than a quarter of Australians are affected by a chronic musculoskeletal condition, there are still widespread misconceptions and limited treatment options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cPatients are often left to navigate and understand their medical condition without access to reliable information,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur research has debunked a common myth, and we hope shifted attention to evidenced based care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen seeking pain prevention and relief, both patients and clinicians should focus on how to best manage the condition, including weight management and exercises, and not let the weather influence any treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":571,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"research-group-tax":[],"primary-research-area":[],"class_list":["post-2324","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop-300x207.webp",300,207,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/thumb_Blog_knee-pain-lower-res_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ict-wordpress-support@sydney.edu.au","author_link":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/author\/ict-wordpress-supportsydney-edu-au\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Many people believe there is a connection between the weather and joint or muscle pain, but a team of researchers from the Kolling Institute and the University of Sydney say their latest study has found there is no link between the two. Lead author Professor Manuela Ferreira said there is a longstanding belief that changes…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2324\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"research-group-tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-group-tax?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"primary-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary-research-area?post=2324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}