Cartoon for holiday I

 

"You'll be kept awake throughout the operation."

Protecting your knees

Researchers are re-thinking long-held doctrines about the cartilage that cushions the bones of your knees and other joints. The breakdown of cartilage is the primary cause of arthritis. As one of the researchers states, “Since cartilage doesn’t have a blood or nerve supply, we used to think it couldn’t adapt or repair itself.” Apparently, that’s not true. Weight bearing activities such as walking and running squeeze the cartilage in the knee joint, expelling waste and drawing in a fresh supply of nutrient- and oxygen-rich fluid with each step. Cartilage is a living tissue that thrives with regular use.

Because people worry about damaging their knees, they often turn from running or walking to low-impact activities such as swimming and cycling, believing it will protect their joints. But, as another researcher notes, “what they’re doing is starving the cartilage.” You need to keep up your exercise, but, if you have knee pain, do it more frequently and for shorter periods. A physiologist who studies the molecular properties of cartilage and other connective tissues says that the cells in cartilage respond positively to exercise for about ten minutes. After that, you’re just accumulating more stress and damage in the tissue.

Another important principle is strengthening the muscles that support your knees. Keeping those muscles strong stabilizes your knees and stiffens the tendons and ligaments around the joints. The experts recommend squats and lunges. If you’re like me and can’t do those exercises anymore, look on the internet for alternatives that suit you. You can also focus your attention on how you get up from chairs and the toilet: don’t use your hands; keep your knees and hips aligned over your feet. If you can’t keep the joints aligned, it’s a sign you need to strengthen your leg and butt muscles.

Experts have debunked the notion that you should stop being active as soon as you notice knee pain. What you need to do is stay active, strengthen the muscles around the joint, and develop good movement patterns.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

How to stand correctly

 Today’s blog post is verbatim from a New York Times article with the same title. I’m a big believer in the idea that posture—and related matters such as gait—have a huge impact on the development of aches and pains as we age. The following advice comes from James Murphy, the director of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York. 

Here’s what to do:

Plant your feet about hip distance apart; the weight on each foot should feel the same. Establish equilibrium by spreading the pinkie toe as far away from the big toe as possible. You can feel how weight might shift a little bit from the inside of your foot to the outside, the front to the back.

Next, bring your feet together so your big toes and heels touch. This action forces your muscles to engage in balancing you.

Press your heels against the floor, and work your way up, tightening the muscles. Get some grip coming up to your knees and thighs and buttocks to have a firmness take place in our legs.

Once the legs are engaged, align the upper half of the body by lifting spine, rib cage and chest. Take a deep breath as you straighten your backbone. Use the whole circumference of your chest and around your heart and your lungs—use that whole rib cage to lift up, so that you’re creating space in your trunk, including the spine and also the organs.

I know. It seems kind of complicated. Give it a try anyway. I’m going to.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Energy: the work of mitochondria

Some people have more energy than others. That’s probably because their mitochondria are doing a good job. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. They are organelles (little organs) that convert glucose and oxygen into cellular fuel. They also help produce essential hormones including estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol, and they transform chemical energy into electrical energy, making it possible for organs and cells to communicate.

Our mitochondria started out as bacteria. One and a half billion years ago, the planet’s only life forms were single-celled. Over time, multicellular life-forms evolved into bacteria, and the bacteria evolved into mitochondria, the organelles that fuel living creatures (vast oversimplification). As Nick Paumgarten writes in The New Yorker, “It’s not inconceivable that the rest of the body…is merely an elaborate and sometimes clumsy apparatus for the nourishment of the mitochondria.” In this way of thinking, our cardiovascular systems are essentially a delivery system for the oxygen required by the mitochondria.

Martin Picard, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center specializes in the connection between the mind and mitochondria. He sees the human body as a social network and views mitochondria as “cellular antenna, or little brains that receive, process, and integrate information.”  He has found that “Cells age faster if you expose them to stress. They consume more oxygen. They’re wasting energy, and we don’t know why.” He has also found that mood has a direct effect on mitochondria and that one in five thousand humans have mitochondria disease—genetic defects that cause them to be tired all the time. Other scientists have determined that antibiotics, environmental chemicals, over-used pharmaceutical, fructose, bad light, and electromagnetic fields are energy disrupters. I don’t know about that.

Much remains to be learned about mitochondria. As Paumgarten says, “The precise workings of the metabolic system, its nuances and contingencies, are, in many respects, an enduring mystery.”

 For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.