John Arts                   Abundant Living                   www.johnarts.co.nz

I have been helping people with knee osteoarthritis for over 25 years.  I have been helping one client with this for nearly two years. When we first spoke, he needed to take pain relief just to walk for exercise. After six months he said the pain had completely gone and no longer needed pain medication.

Any successful programme to improve joints affected by OA should address the underlying disease process. OA is a disease that is characterised by cartilage loss due to both mechanical and biochemical processes. The major process is the loss of cartilage caused by progressive damage to specialised cells called chondrocytes. These cells live in the matrix of cartilage and a responsible for maintaining and repairing cartilage by secreting new cartilage where required.

However, these cells are vulnerable to destructive processes brought about by trauma, such as sports injury, or disease process especially oxidative damage. This just means that cells and cell structures have been damaged by free radicals. The body’s response to this is our antioxidant defence systems to neutralise free radicals before they can cause damage.

The greatest source of discomfort in OA is inflammation in the joint capsule resulting in pain, swelling and in some cases heat and redness. While bone on bone can only be repaired by surgery, the discomfort from inflammation and cartilage loss can respond very well to nutritional therapy.

The most important joint support compound is high grade chondroitin sulphate.

Research suggests at least 800mg daily. I like to start most on an intensive programme delivering 1600mg of both chondroitin and glucosamine and 400mg of a new generation 100 per cent water soluble curcumin extract. This combined with therapeutic doses of Omega 3 fish oil can make a real difference.

John Arts (Adv.Dip.Nut.Med) is a nutritional medicine practitioner and founder of Abundant Health Ltd. For questions or advice contact John on 0800 423559 or email john@abundant.co.nz.  Join his newsletter at www.abundant.co.nz.