Farmers may be less likely to break their hips, but they do need to replace them. An Icelandic study found that male farmers were much more likely to have hip and knee replacements due to osteoarthritis compared to men in more sedentary professions. Fishermen came in second in the list of professions linked to high rates of joint replacements. Women had much lower rates of joint replacements and the rate among female farmers wasn’t significantly different from that of sedentary workers.
Source: Association between Occupation and Knee and Hip Replacement due to Osteoarthritis: A Case-Control Study. Jonas Franklin, Thorvaldur Ingvarsson, Martin Englund & Stefan Lohmander. Arthritis Research & Therapy. Volume 12. Number 3. 2010.
- Janet Wallace