Cartilage is really the final frontier of health. If it wasn’t for joints going bad, people could stay very active and fit pretty much all their life, with consistent exercise and healthy weight.
> Osteoarthritis occurs when a joint is stressed by aging, injury or obesity. The chondrocytes begin to release pro-inflammatory molecules and to break down collagen, which is the primary structural protein of cartilage. When collagen is lost, the cartilage thins and softens; the accompanying inflammation causes the joint swelling and pain that are hallmarks of the disease.
Collagen synthesis in the human body can be aided by hydrolyzed collagen, Vitamin C, zinc and copper.
Among endurance athletes collagen supplements have become increasingly popular the past couple years -- from what I understand the evidence is kind of mixed though
Lots of folks are pointing this out, but it's not like there isn't evidence to suggest this will also apply to humans.
> Human knee tissue collected during joint replacement surgeries also responded positively to the treatment. These samples, which include both the joint’s supporting extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells, began forming new cartilage that functioned normally.
FTFA: "Both systemic and local inhibition of 15-PGDH with a small molecule inhibitor (PGDHi) led to regeneration of articular cartilage and reduction in OA-associated pain."
"PGDHi" is a name for both the process "15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase inhibition" and any inhibitor.
This link(a PDF file) shows PGDHi's are powerful stuff:
Here for the same question! Broke my left ankle three times as a football (soccer) playing youth who cared not for rehab! Now stuck with limited range of monitor and arthritis in my foot / ankle.
Does anyone have any idea if you have arthritis what you can do to manage the symptoms? I figure there are some people here that researched it relatively well.
I've had arthrosis in both knees for several years (due to a combination of youthful sports injuries and overweight). A few years ago I saw a knee specialist who predicted I was due for knee replacement sometime soon.
On the advice of a massage therapist I instead started a habit of using a home cycling machine for half an hour each morning. So far, it has worked wonders for me, and I hope I can hold on for a decade more, by which time the injection mentioned in the article might be ready for humans.
Arthritis is a general term; need narrow down for useful advice on managing symptoms.
Two most common types are osteoarthritis (wear-and-tear associated with aging and/or injuries) and rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune).
I only know about age-related knee osteoarthritis to try to help my mom manage her symptoms, so I'll share my understanding of treating that.
High ROI, low cost:
- weight management. Extra lbs are extra stress on the knees, plus I suspect chronic inflammation associated with being overweight can exacerbate arthritis independent of mechanical stress.
- exercise, specifically low impact cardio and any pain-free strength/hypertrophy work targeting the musculature around the knees (mainly quads).
Variable ROI, low cost:
- NSAIDs, specifically topical to focus on treatment area and reduce impact on GI system/kidneys.
- curcumin, mixed evidence but some people report benefits.
Variable ROI, high cost:
- PRP injections. Apparently the quality on these varies dramatically by provider. Would recommend doing research and comparing multiple providers if possible.
- Knee replacement. Far from a panacea; you'll lose range of motion forever, plus plenty of other trade-offs. Most people recommend putting this off for as long as possible.
Also interesting is low dose radiation treatment for knee OA. More affordable than other procedures and has some promising research.
Not much else on the novel treatment front that I've found. Curious if anyone thinks I've missed anything worthwhile.
I have had fairly serious arthritis in my hips for close to a decade now. Cortizone shots directly into the joint have helped the worst of the flare-ups (limping on my way into the shot, having 0 pain walking out of it, lasting a year).
5+ years ago when I was looking for another injection, my PCP said "Well, time for a hip replacement." Now, for reasons I don't understand I think he was being way premature on that (everyone I'd talked to prior to that had said I should wait as long as I can, and it'd been 2+ years since my last shot).
But I'd pretty much accepted that hip pain was just a part of my life, (especially in the morning) picking something off the floor was painful, just walking and in particular walking stairs was just a little painful.
A few weeks ago I tried some stretches I saw on Youtube shorts. Like a minute a day. It's like I've got new hips.
I've never been a very "compliant patient" when it comes to stretching, but that was mostly because I saw no benefits from it. But this one stretch was like a miracle!
I f'd my knees running track in HS - i suspect some kind of structural problem that alters the way my knees move. Sr year wsa awful, i was just about crawling to class in the morning. MRIs showed nothing and I learned to live with it and eventually it got better when I stopped running.
10ish years later I had started riding my bike a lot during the dotcom explosion induced downtime, I kept it up after I was employed again. Knee pain came back. Went to the ortho again, this time was told "oh you have a torn meniscus, lets go fix it.
So I went under and woke up to be told that my meniscus was fine, and that I had worn grooves through the cartilage and into the bone - doc told me to never run, jump, ski, ride, etc. I was to sit on the couch.
Somehow I ended up taking karate, and the knees hurt for a bit, but the stretching we did helped loosen up my hams and quads. It didnt make the knee pain go away, but it made it tolerable in that it no longer affected my day to day.
I'm constantly telling people to look up physical therapy movements/stretches for whatever they've got going on. Slept wrong? Tweaked your neck? You absolutely do NOT have to suffer with that until it goes away on its own, they can show you how to fix it.
If your insurance covers it, go see one! Them being able to actually see and feel what's going on specifically with you makes them markedly better at their jobs.
When doing stretches, don't forget the opposite side of the equation which is strength.
Not the "I'm going to bench 200lbs" type strength, but the musculature that supports movement.
It's quite easy to always focus on stretching, but not build the muscles that support good movement. You can turn yourself into a floppy noodle, which brings on more injury.
The body is very weird and finds ways to compensate
I had a football injury when I was 13 that badly damaged my knee meniscus (though I didn’t know it at that time). At 16, I had a complete menisectomy - total removal of the lateral meniscus in my right knee
I was told that I would need to get a transplant and/or new knees in 10-15 years. I was also told that I shouldn’t put too much strain on the knee
I’m now 38 and my knee is mostly…fine. I can run, squat a reasonable amount of weight, walk for miles. Only thing I can’t do is fast directional changes (like in football) or bending down on the lateral side of my right knee
My plan is to extend this as long as possible and hopefully in 10 years, they’ll have tech to fix this for good
Some anecdotal knowledge I can share on why they used to say wait as long as you can for a hip replacement:
We were told this was because it used to be that they could only do the hip replacement surgery once, and the replacement joint would only last around 20 years max.
So basically it had to be for the expected life span of the patient!
But now this is no longer true. Well, in Australia at least with access to modern replacement parts, surgical techniques and specialists!
I could be muddling it up a bit, so happy to be corrected :-)
This has been my experience with every sports of weightlifting injury I've had and I'm in my 40s. The body wants to heal or at least compensate in some way. Light activity is often better than rest. I've got a knee that is acting up a little bit but I think I've figured out how to keep it healthy while running.
Yeah, a lot of healing mechanisms are also behind many tumor/cancer factors. There's a lot of reasons behind aging phenomenons, and a lot are self protective. It's not given all of the aging is intended and can't be reversed, but a lot of it is there for biological reasons.
I wonder if this would apply to backs/back injuries. This is super exciting, if it pans out. I can't wait for the follow up research. A pill that 'just works' is an amazing thing. Loosing mobility later in life leads to a lot of problems so directly attacking the cause of (a lot) of mobility loss is really great to see.
Turns out the pain in my knee was a latent infection with staph aureus, forming small nubs under the skin.
Debrided the skin, removing the nubs, applied 3% doyiciclin creme and pain is gone.
This for a knee with 2 operations before and teo doctors saying I need a replacement.
Doctors are mostly unhelpful idiots imho.
Anecdote for any runners reading this: I'm a 75 year old runner. (Some young runners might say I run at a jogger's pace, I just tell them to keep off my lawn.)
A couple decades ago, I stopped running on concrete or asphalt, and took up trail running, i.e. running on (mostly) dirt. It feels way easier than running on asphalt, much less on concrete. If you're skeptical that running on concrete or asphalt feels harder, give it a try. YMMV, but I'd bet you notice a difference.
And yes, I do fall sometimes, tripping over roots or rocks. But I recover quickly.
"Abstract: Regeneration of hyaline cartilage in human-sized joints remains a clinical challenge, and it is a critical unmet need that would contribute to longer healthspans. Injectable scaffolds for cartilage repair that integrate both bioactivity and sufficiently robust physical properties to withstand joint stresses offer a promising strategy. We report here on a hybrid biomaterial that combines a bioactive peptide amphiphile supramolecular polymer that specifically binds the chondrogenic cytokine transforming growth factor β-1 (TGFβ-1) and crosslinked hyaluronic acid microgels that drive formation of filament bundles, a hierarchical motif common in natural musculoskeletal tissues. The scaffold is an injectable slurry that generates a porous rubbery material when exposed to calcium ions once placed in cartilage defects. The hybrid material was found to support in vitro chondrogenic differentiation of encapsulated stem cells in response to sustained delivery of TGFβ-1. Using a sheep model, we implanted the scaffold in shallow osteochondral defects and found it can remain localized in mechanically active joints. Evaluation of resected joints showed significantly improved repair of hyaline cartilage in osteochondral defects injected with the scaffold relative to defects injected with the growth factor alone, including implantation in the load-bearing femoral condyle. These results demonstrate the potential of the hybrid biomimetic scaffold as a niche to favor cartilage repair in mechanically active joints using a clinically relevant large-animal model."
I run regularly. Some years back I switched from a heel strike stride to a ball-of-foot strike. It greatly reduced the shock load on my knees and hips. It's the same gait you'd naturally do if you took off your shoe and ran barefoot.
Curious, does anyone know if this might also apply to tendons? I've had patella tendonitis for years (jumpers knee) and have tried everything (isometrics, shockwave, PRP injections, etc...).
Yep. Do those on a slant board. And knee extensions. And a few others. Plus drink collagen before it. I’m still working my way through it so it might work, but I’d love for something like this to work.
56 comments
[ 8.0 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadCollagen synthesis in the human body can be aided by hydrolyzed collagen, Vitamin C, zinc and copper.
e.g. https://thefeed.com/products/pillar-performance-collagen-1?v...
https://massresearchreview.com/2025/09/29/connecting-the-dot...
I have been taking collagen, but will likely stop.
> Human knee tissue collected during joint replacement surgeries also responded positively to the treatment. These samples, which include both the joint’s supporting extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells, began forming new cartilage that functioned normally.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6649
Inhibition of 15-hydroxy prostaglandin dehydrogenase promotes cartilage regeneration Mamta Singla https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6408-1167, Yu Xin Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8440-9388, Elena Monti https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3767-0855, Yudhishtar Bedi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1213-4116, [...] , and Nidhi Bhutani https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7494-5870
FTFA: "Both systemic and local inhibition of 15-PGDH with a small molecule inhibitor (PGDHi) led to regeneration of articular cartilage and reduction in OA-associated pain."
"PGDHi" is a name for both the process "15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase inhibition" and any inhibitor.
This link(a PDF file) shows PGDHi's are powerful stuff:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2025/04/17/202...
"PGDHi" could be prostaglandin-E2 (dinoprostone):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin_E2
which was used in:
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/06/muscle-aging....
they are just insanely expensive in the USA because of drug patents
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPGD
On the advice of a massage therapist I instead started a habit of using a home cycling machine for half an hour each morning. So far, it has worked wonders for me, and I hope I can hold on for a decade more, by which time the injection mentioned in the article might be ready for humans.
Two most common types are osteoarthritis (wear-and-tear associated with aging and/or injuries) and rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune).
I only know about age-related knee osteoarthritis to try to help my mom manage her symptoms, so I'll share my understanding of treating that.
High ROI, low cost: - weight management. Extra lbs are extra stress on the knees, plus I suspect chronic inflammation associated with being overweight can exacerbate arthritis independent of mechanical stress. - exercise, specifically low impact cardio and any pain-free strength/hypertrophy work targeting the musculature around the knees (mainly quads).
Variable ROI, low cost: - NSAIDs, specifically topical to focus on treatment area and reduce impact on GI system/kidneys. - curcumin, mixed evidence but some people report benefits.
Variable ROI, high cost: - PRP injections. Apparently the quality on these varies dramatically by provider. Would recommend doing research and comparing multiple providers if possible. - Knee replacement. Far from a panacea; you'll lose range of motion forever, plus plenty of other trade-offs. Most people recommend putting this off for as long as possible.
Also interesting is low dose radiation treatment for knee OA. More affordable than other procedures and has some promising research.
Not much else on the novel treatment front that I've found. Curious if anyone thinks I've missed anything worthwhile.
5+ years ago when I was looking for another injection, my PCP said "Well, time for a hip replacement." Now, for reasons I don't understand I think he was being way premature on that (everyone I'd talked to prior to that had said I should wait as long as I can, and it'd been 2+ years since my last shot).
But I'd pretty much accepted that hip pain was just a part of my life, (especially in the morning) picking something off the floor was painful, just walking and in particular walking stairs was just a little painful.
A few weeks ago I tried some stretches I saw on Youtube shorts. Like a minute a day. It's like I've got new hips.
I've never been a very "compliant patient" when it comes to stretching, but that was mostly because I saw no benefits from it. But this one stretch was like a miracle!
10ish years later I had started riding my bike a lot during the dotcom explosion induced downtime, I kept it up after I was employed again. Knee pain came back. Went to the ortho again, this time was told "oh you have a torn meniscus, lets go fix it.
So I went under and woke up to be told that my meniscus was fine, and that I had worn grooves through the cartilage and into the bone - doc told me to never run, jump, ski, ride, etc. I was to sit on the couch.
Somehow I ended up taking karate, and the knees hurt for a bit, but the stretching we did helped loosen up my hams and quads. It didnt make the knee pain go away, but it made it tolerable in that it no longer affected my day to day.
If your insurance covers it, go see one! Them being able to actually see and feel what's going on specifically with you makes them markedly better at their jobs.
Not the "I'm going to bench 200lbs" type strength, but the musculature that supports movement.
It's quite easy to always focus on stretching, but not build the muscles that support good movement. You can turn yourself into a floppy noodle, which brings on more injury.
I had a football injury when I was 13 that badly damaged my knee meniscus (though I didn’t know it at that time). At 16, I had a complete menisectomy - total removal of the lateral meniscus in my right knee
I was told that I would need to get a transplant and/or new knees in 10-15 years. I was also told that I shouldn’t put too much strain on the knee
I’m now 38 and my knee is mostly…fine. I can run, squat a reasonable amount of weight, walk for miles. Only thing I can’t do is fast directional changes (like in football) or bending down on the lateral side of my right knee
My plan is to extend this as long as possible and hopefully in 10 years, they’ll have tech to fix this for good
We were told this was because it used to be that they could only do the hip replacement surgery once, and the replacement joint would only last around 20 years max.
So basically it had to be for the expected life span of the patient!
But now this is no longer true. Well, in Australia at least with access to modern replacement parts, surgical techniques and specialists!
I could be muddling it up a bit, so happy to be corrected :-)
A couple decades ago, I stopped running on concrete or asphalt, and took up trail running, i.e. running on (mostly) dirt. It feels way easier than running on asphalt, much less on concrete. If you're skeptical that running on concrete or asphalt feels harder, give it a try. YMMV, but I'd bet you notice a difference.
And yes, I do fall sometimes, tripping over roots or rocks. But I recover quickly.
Mud, obstacles, and terrain that hasn't been bulldozed and rolled to be pan-flat make it much slower.
"A bioactive supramolecular and covalent polymer scaffold for cartilage repair in a sheep model" - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2405454121
"Abstract: Regeneration of hyaline cartilage in human-sized joints remains a clinical challenge, and it is a critical unmet need that would contribute to longer healthspans. Injectable scaffolds for cartilage repair that integrate both bioactivity and sufficiently robust physical properties to withstand joint stresses offer a promising strategy. We report here on a hybrid biomaterial that combines a bioactive peptide amphiphile supramolecular polymer that specifically binds the chondrogenic cytokine transforming growth factor β-1 (TGFβ-1) and crosslinked hyaluronic acid microgels that drive formation of filament bundles, a hierarchical motif common in natural musculoskeletal tissues. The scaffold is an injectable slurry that generates a porous rubbery material when exposed to calcium ions once placed in cartilage defects. The hybrid material was found to support in vitro chondrogenic differentiation of encapsulated stem cells in response to sustained delivery of TGFβ-1. Using a sheep model, we implanted the scaffold in shallow osteochondral defects and found it can remain localized in mechanically active joints. Evaluation of resected joints showed significantly improved repair of hyaline cartilage in osteochondral defects injected with the scaffold relative to defects injected with the growth factor alone, including implantation in the load-bearing femoral condyle. These results demonstrate the potential of the hybrid biomimetic scaffold as a niche to favor cartilage repair in mechanically active joints using a clinically relevant large-animal model."
As far as I recall, the treatment I was prescribed for the same thing was mostly eccentric single leg squats, ideally on a 30 degree angled board.
And rest...