Word: jointing
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...here comes the interesting part," says Dr. Klaus Kuettner, professor of biochemistry at Rush--Presbyterian--St. Luke's. "The ankle joint responds better than the knee joint to osteogenic proteins." Is that why the ankle rarely gets osteoarthritis? "We don't know," says Kuettner, "but it's a hint in that direction...
...even the interaction between bones and cartilage doesn't tell the whole story. You also need to take into account the ligaments, those tough bands of tissue that connect bones to bones, and the muscles that surround and stabilize the joints. Ligaments can get stretched or torn, and muscles can atrophy from underuse, disrupting a joint's finely tuned mechanism...
...makes sense. The stronger the muscles, the greater the load they take off the joint, thus limiting damage to the cartilage. Brandt's group is trying to determine whether healthy seniors who strengthen their quads by doing exercises with elastic-bands can delay, or possibly prevent, the disabling consequences of osteoarthritis in their knees...
However the arthritic process gets started, the damage to the joint eventually begins to grow. That's when the body's immune system gets into the act. White blood cells rush into the joint and release destructive proteins that chew up the bits and pieces of damaged tissue. This so-called inflammatory process, which is often but not necessarily accompanied by swelling, works well when the body needs to fend off an acute attack--say, from invading viruses or bacteria. But when the problem is chronic, as in osteoarthritis, the white blood cells may overreact, repeatedly releasing so many...
None of these processes occur in isolation. "Everything is failing together," says Dr. David Felson, a rheumatologist at Boston University. "That includes bone damage, the responses to that, muscle weakness, inflammation of the lining of the joint and ligament disruption." It follows that to be successful, any treatment will have to deal with all these factors...