Is there a non-surgical alternative to knee replacement surgery that treats the cause and only offers beneficial side effects?
The largest study in history on the health effects of being overweight, analyzing Data from more than 50 million people from nearly 200 countries found that excess body weight causes the premature death of around four million people each year. Most of these deaths are due to heart disease, but researchers “found compelling or probable evidence” linking obesity to 20 different disorders, a veritable alphabet soup of potential health problems.
In the ABCs of the health consequences of obesity, TO It’s for arthritis. Obesity can do rheumatoid arthritis worsens and increase the risk of another inflammatory joint disease: gout, the so-called king’s disease. However, the most common joint disease in the world, is osteoarthritis and obesity can be its “main modifiable risk factor.”
Osteoarthritis develops when the cartilage that lines and cushions our joints breaks down faster than our body can rebuild it. Our knee is the most commonly affected joint, major to the assumption that the association with obesity was simply due to excessive wear and tear due to additional loading on the joints. But non-weight-bearing joints, such as the hands and wrists, can also be affected, suggesting the link is not “purely mechanical.” Obesity-related dyslipidemia can play a role, with elevations in the amounts of triglycerides, fats and cholesterol in the blood aggravating Inflammation in the joints, like cholesterol, can exacerbate inflammation in the artery walls.
Osteoarthritis patients not only have higher blood cholesterol levels, but also have inside their joints, as you can see below and at minute 1:52 of my video The best knee replacement alternative for the treatment of osteoarthritisin aspirate joint fluid and also found in the cartilage itself.
When cholesterol is drip on human cartilage in a Petri dish, inflammatory degeneration worsens, which helps explain why the higher our cholesterol, the worse our disease will be, as shown below and at minute 2:05.
Cholesterol-lowering statins may help prevent and also treat osteoarthritis, such as can a diet to reduce cholesterol. In fact, a healthy enough plant-based diet can offer the best of both worlds: lower cholesterol as much as a starting dose of a statin (in a single week) and having only good side effects, such as lowering blood pressure and facilitating weight loss.
Even defeated Just about a pound a year for a decade can decrease your chances of developing osteoarthritis by more than 50 percent. Weight reduction can even avoid the need for knee replacement surgery. Patients with osteoarthritis and obesity who were randomly assigned to lose weight improved their knee function as much as those who had surgery, and they did so in just eight weeks. The researchers concluded that losing 20 pounds of fat “could be considered an alternative to knee replacement.”
Isn’t it easier to replace your knees than to lose 20 pounds? Rarely discussed is the fact that nearly 1 in 200 knee replacement patients lose their lives within 90 days after surgery. Given the extreme popularity of this surgery (about 700,000 are performed each year in the United States), an editor of an orthopedic journal suggested that “people considering this operation are not sufficiently attuned to the possibility that it could kill them.” That is arguably the most salient fact that can be shared with a patient considering surgery. Responding to the question of whether patients should be informed about the possibility that the operation will kill them, one orthopedic surgeon said: “For me, the real question is whether this knowledge will help the patient. Will it add to the anxiety of the already anxious patient, perhaps to the point of denying them a useful operation? Or will this knowledge motivate a less disabled patient to follow a diet and physical activity regimen? So ultimately the issue comes down to the surgeon’s judgment.”
Even among the vast majority who survive surgery, about one in five knee replacement patients describe be dissatisfied with the result. On the other hand, losing weight with a healthy diet can offer a non-surgical alternative that treats the cause and has only beneficial side effects.
I continue the obesity alphabet with upcoming videos in the related posts below.
You may be interested in my book on weight loss, How not to dietand his companion, The Cookbook on How Not to Dietwhich is full of health-promoting Green Light recipes. Request them at your local library.
For more information on joint health, visit the topic page.
