BREAKING NEWS FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS SUFFERERS

Gone are the days of calling osteoarthritis a ‘wear and tear’ condition, according to leading Australian and UK researchers. “This is an incorrect term,” says Milena Simic, senior lecturer in physiotherapy at The University of Sydney. “The more we ‘wear’ our joints doesn’t necessarily lead to more ‘tearing’. And not everybody gets worse.”

“For too long it has been assumed that osteoarthritis is part and parcel of getting older, however, this is not the case,” adds Ali Mobasheri, professor of musculoskeletal physiology at University of Surrey in the UK. “What we have learnt is that we can control and prevent the onset of this painful condition.”

The team led by Mobasheri found that poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle cause ‘genetic reprogramming’, driving cells to overproduce glucose, which converts into lactic acid, triggering inflammation. The cando solution? A healthy diet, combined with regular exercise.