Is arthritis an inevitable part of growing older and what are the ways to prevent it?

Channel News Asia ^ | 5/7

[nickcarraway]

Painful, stiff or swollen joints are a common complaint among older adults, and for many, may be the first sign of arthritis - but the condition shouldn’t be an inevitable part of growing older as it can be avoided.

What was once an easy run may feel tougher to complete. Or perhaps a challenging game of tennis might leave your hip or ankle sore for days.

Painful, stiff or swollen joints are a common complaint among older adults — and for many, they’re the first sign of what may feel like an unavoidable diagnosis: Arthritis.

In a 2022 survey of more than 2,200 people between ages 50 and 80 in the United States, 60 per cent said they had been told by a healthcare provider that they had some form of arthritis. And about three-quarters considered joint pain and arthritis a normal part of ageing. But arthritis is not inevitable as we age, said Kelli Dominick Allen, an exercise physiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

[Faith65]

BKMK

[Blennos]

Several studies seem to confirm the efficacy of niacinamide for the treatment and prevention of osteoarthritis. Here below is the synopsis of one of them.

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Fifty years ago, Kaufman reported that high-dose niacinamide was beneficial in osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis. A recent double-blind study confirms the efficacy of niacinamide in OA. It may be feasible to interpret this finding in the context of evidence that synovium-generated interleukin-1 (IL-1), by inducing nitric oxide (NO) synthase and thereby inhibiting chondrocyte synthesis of aggrecan and type II collagen, is crucial to the pathogenesis of OA. Niacinamide and other inhibitors of ADP-ribosylation have been shown to suppress cytokine-mediated induction of NO synthase in a number of types of cells; it is therefore reasonable to speculate that niacinamide will have a comparable effect in IL-1-exposed chondrocytes, blunting the anti-anabolic impact of IL-1. The chondroprotective antibiotic doxycycline may have a similar mechanism of action. Other nutrients reported to be useful in OA may likewise intervene in the activity or synthesis of IL-1. Supplemental glucosamine can be expected to stimulate synovial synthesis of hyaluronic acid; hyaluronic acid suppresses the anti-catabolic effect of IL-1 in chondrocyte cell cultures, and has documented therapeutic efficacy when injected intra-articularly. S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), another proven therapy for OA, upregulates the proteoglycan synthesis of chondrocytes, perhaps because it functions physiologically as a signal of sulfur availability. IL-1 is likely to decrease SAM levels in chondrocytes; supplemental SAM may compensate for this deficit. Adequate selenium nutrition may down-regulate cytokine signaling, and ample intakes of fish oil can be expected to decrease synovial IL-1 production; these nutrients should receive further evaluation in OA. These considerations suggest that non-toxic nutritional regimens, by intervening at multiple points in the signal transduction pathways that promote the synthesis and mediate the activity of IL-1, may provide a substantially superior alternative to NSAIDs (merely palliative and often dangerously toxic) in the treatment and perhaps prevention of OA.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10608273/

[Albion Wilde]

Another bump.

[Songcraft]

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