According to statistics, about 23% of adults and 29% of adolescents in the general population suffer from patellar pain (knee pain) each year. The so-called "old cold legs" are not really "frozen" but rather the result of wear and aging in the knees causing knee pain.
It is generally believed that only the elderly suffer from knee osteoarthritis, but in recent years, research has found that this degenerative joint disease is tending to become younger. More and more young people are facing the crisis of knee osteoarthritis. In fact, the daily habits you often ignore are often destroying your knees.
The official journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT), published an article in 2017 combining 17 studies totaling 114,829 people, and concluded that appropriate running can protect bone joint health. The study found that only 3.5% of people who exercise by running have hip or knee arthritis, while 13.3% of people who participate in competitive sports have hip or knee arthritis and 10.2% of people who are sedentary have hip or knee arthritis.
Is sitting worse for your knees than running? This may contradict our conventional belief that exercise is more likely to harm the knees, but the study above shows that people who are sedentary have three times the rate of arthritis in their joints compared to those who engage in moderate exercise. "Sedentary behavior" has become one of the key culprits in the discomfort of joints in young people.
Why “sitting is worse for your knees than running”？
To understand this further, we need to start with the structure of the knee. The knee joint is the most complex and easily injured joint in the human body. The normal lifespan of the human knee is around 60 years, reaching its peak around the age of 30 and then entering a natural period of aging and degeneration. In our daily activities, the pressure on the knee joint can be as much as 50 times the pressure on a car tire!
Because the knee joint (especially the knee cartilage) is a consumable structure, the more it is used, the less it remains. Once the knee is severely worn, it can only be replaced. The knee joint has a set of self-protective mechanisms to meet our daily use.
Let's look at the structure of the knee joint.
The knee joint, as an important part of supporting the human body to stand, walk, and run, is mainly due to its “three-fold insurance” structure.
Insurance I：The synovial membrane inside the joint capsule secretes joint lubricating fluid (mainly composed of hyaluronic acid), which acts as a lubricant and also provides nutrition to the articular cartilage.
Insurance II：Articular cartilage and meniscus, like soft cushions, play a buffer role.
Insurance III：Ligaments and muscles can maintain joint stability.
Back to why "sitting can also harm the knees"? This is because prolonged sitting damages the insurance I of the knee joint, cutting off the nutrition supply to the joint. A healthy knee joint is full of joint lubricant, which is a key factor in the normal functioning of the joint. The main component of joint lubricant is hyaluronic acid, which also is a primary nutrition to the articular cartilage.
Another key factor is that the process of providing nutrition to the joint requires compressive force to enter the joint. When we sit still for a long time, the articular cartilage does not have the sponge-like squeezing and relaxing process, so it naturally does not absorb the nutrition from the joint lubricant. Over time, sustained malnutrition makes the articular cartilage become loose and fragile. In addition, prolonged sitting can also lead to atrophy of the leg muscles, lacking muscle support. In this way, the insurance II and III for the knee joint are also damaged, which directly leads to the collapse of the three-fold insurance for the knee joint, causing knee pain and then arthritis.
How to protect our knees？
It is essential to supplement hyaluronic acid.
As you age, your knees will gradually age and degenerate, which means that the cartilage in your knees will wear out and the bones will begin to rub against each other, and the joint capsule will not produce enough joint lubricant.
Two ways to protect our knees：
· Maintain healthy knee joints · Preventing knee joint damage
To maintain healthy knee joints, you can enhance the stability of your knees and maintain the nutrition supply to your knees by keeping a healthy weight, exercising appropriately, avoiding prolonged sitting, and avoiding improper exercise posture.
In addition to developing good lifestyle habits, preventing knee joint damage can also be achieved through nutritional supplementation. The insurance I and II for the knee joint have a very important nutrient - hyaluronic acid, which is a key component of joint lubricant and is secreted by synovial cells and chondrocytes.
An adult body contains about 15g of hyaluronic acid, of which the concentration of hyaluronic acid in joint lubricant is the highest. The hyaluronic acid we degrade and synthesize every day accounts for about 1/3 of its total weight (about 5g) to ensure that hyaluronic acid can play its best role.
Hyaluronic acid in joint lubricant has high viscoelasticity and lubricity, which plays a role in lubricating and shock-absorbing bone joints. Articular cartilage also contains hyaluronic acid, which gives cartilage its special porosity and elasticity, and plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of cartilage tissue. At the same time, hyaluronic acid can prevent the release and spread of inflammatory factors in the joint and alleviate joint pain.
As the main component of joint lubricant, the decrease in endogenous hyaluronic acid concentration and molecular weight is an important cause of the decline in synovial fluid viscoelasticity and the occurrence of inflammation. At the same time, synovial fluid is the only medium for cartilage to absorb nutrition and excrete waste, and the presence of hyaluronic acid creates a healthy benign circulation environment for the joint. Therefore, hyaluronic acid is commonly used in the treatment of knee arthritis in clinical practice.
Compared to the injection of hyaluronic acid, oral supplementation of hyaluronic acid is more compliant, has fewer side effects, and is more economical and convenient for people with knee discomfort. Therefore, it is increasingly widely used. In 2021, a joint research achievement of Tsinghua University, "The Physiological Function and Mechanism of Oral Hyaluronic Acid Supplementation for Promoting Bone and Joint Health: A Review of Representative Studies from 2008 to 2015," reviewed representative studies on the promotion of bone and joint health through oral hyaluronic acid from 2008 to 2015, and confirmed that oral hyaluronic acid can relieve knee joint pain, synovial fluid accumulation, and inflammation, and improve knee joint strength.
Bloomage Biotech is the largest global developer, manufacturer and distributor of hyaluronic acid, and consistently invests in basic and applied research. In 2016, Bloomage Biotech teamed up with the European A&G laboratory to conduct a clinical trial of oral UltraHA (a new food-grade hyaluronic acid sodium raw material ). Patients with degenerative joint arthritis, high-intensity athletes, and osteoporosis were selected for oral UltraHA joint efficacy evaluation. The trial proved that continuous oral administration of UltraHA for 3 months significantly improved joint discomfort in the test group.
Take care of your joints by staying active and supplementing nutrition
The knee plays a vital role in our lives, silently bearing an unimaginable weight. Joint damage is irreversible, so let's cherish our knees as we go through life.