Weight loss can slow down knee joint degeneration
 

Weight loss can slow down knee joint degeneration
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...70502084050.htm

Overweight and obese people who lost a substantial amount of weight over a 48-month period showed significantly lower degeneration of their knee cartilage, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.


https://www.webmd.com/pain-manageme...help-your-knees

The study included 760 overweight or obese adults who had mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis or were at risk for it. The participants were divided into a "control group" of patients who lost no weight, and a group who lost weight through either a combination of diet and exercise, diet alone, or exercise alone.

After eight years, cartilage degeneration was much lower in the weight-loss group than in the control group. However, that was true only of people who lost weight through diet and exercise, or diet alone, the investigators found.

Study participants who exercised without changing their diet lost as much weight as those who slimmed down through diet plus exercise or diet alone, but there was no significant difference in cartilage degeneration compared to the control group.

Something else is going on here besides weighing less being less hard on the knee joints because the ailing knees of those who lost the same amount of weight through exercise without dietary changes did not benefit. Perhaps whatever dietary changes people made while trying to lose weight had an effect of reducing inflammation, insulin resistance or improvement in some other factor? Even if they followed low fat calorie restricted diet plans, most people on those plans will cut out junk foods, soda, excess sugar, etc. so some improvement in health would be logically expected from that.

Exercise can be rough on the knees - depending on the type of exercise of course. Exercise can help with weight loss, but in order to lose anywhere near the same amount of weight as you'd lose using diet plus exercise, you'd need to exercise a LOT more, and the more stress you put on already damaged knees during exercise (jogging, running, squats, etc), the more likely you are to counteract the benefits of losing weight.

I prefer to think that whatever causes obesity, also causes knee cartilage degeneration. But then, if there is knee cartilage degeneration, excess weight will excerbate the problem, i.e. lifting heavy stuff (or one's own excess fat tissue) for example. Ironically, the best Olympic lifters are all pretty much overweight if not outright obese. It's ironic because that excess weight serves to lift heavier through some mass transfer (or some other term I can't quite think of) like a pendulum or counterweight, i.e. throw this mass this way to get that mass to go that way. This principle is also used for the disc and hammer throw.

An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGFAZK-7zM

It seems the implication is that the excess weight (over time) is the cause of knee cartilage denegeration (over time). There's scant data on that, but plenty on plain injuries like impacts for example. One text I found claims that Olympic lifting has a very safe record in terms of injury. If we believe that, then we have to wonder why we also believe obesity could cause knee cartilage degeneration. Consider that Olympic lifters practice endless hours with heavy weights. This extensive practice means likelihood of injury (from a lack of skill) goes as low as it can, hence the sport's safety record. With obesity, we live with this excess weight 24/7/365, evidently that's a whole lot of practice. So why the knee cartilage degeneration? It's not the weight, it's certainly not a lack of skill, must be something else.

My experience: 5 years ago I lost over 30 lbs on a low-GL diet, and did over 3 months of P90X to get myself fit to walk up Ben Nevis. On the day I weighed 129 lbs and no problems on the ascent (4000' of up), which I accomplished in the average time, even though I was nearly 60. The descent however was agony, even with supports on both knees and use of trekking poles.

I have not been up Ben Nevis again, but since then I regained most of the weight, and lost it again through IF, to average about 123/124 lbs. I can't say I feel absolutely nothing in my knees when descending the Fells, but I don't need supports and carry only one pole, more for balance.

Was 5 lbs the critical difference? I don't think so. Many IFers report significantly decreased joint pain quite early in their weight loss journeys. I am sure a real low carb WOE will accomplish the same.

I can't talk about knees. I have no problem with them but I can talk about my fingers. At age 55 I started noticing signs of arthritis in my fingers. Over the course of time my finger joints became painful and somewhat deformed. The deformation still exists although it is in no way severe and it is not increasing, plus the pain is entirely gone. I credit a low carb diet for this. In two weeks I will turn 69. I do nothing to explicitly exercise my fingers so diet alone must be given the credit. I too suspect that obesity and knee degeneration may have the same cause. I also suspect that osteoarthritis of my finger joints had the same cause as my former obesity. Sometimes I think that all these "scientists" are intentionally avoiding the elephant in the room. Remove the infllamatory foods from the diet (processed high carbs and highly processed vegetable oils) and lots of problems go away or so I believe.

Jean

I had lots of knee pain from age 12-46 even when I wasn't fat. And also joint pain in a couple of my fingers, wrists & elbows. Removing the inflamatory foods from my diet (processed high carbs; processed vegetable oils; all grain, dairy & legume proteins) has eliminated those pains, and allergy-induced asthma and chronic sinusitis. On the rare times I indulge in these inflammatory foods, it all comes back rapidly, sometimes in as little as 30 minutes. Ganglia/inflamed bursa pop up in my previously injured or over-stressed joints and it takes 3-7 days for the pain and other ailments to dissipate after returning to clean eating.

I wish I could say low carb and a large weight loss worked for me but my joints hurt and my fingers are swollen . The weather seems to play a much bigger roll than diet.

Yeah, I'm thinking there must be more involved than diet and exercise - I can certainly feel it in my joints every time the weather is changing.

I stay away from all dairy, legumes and grains too along with the processed carbs and the vegetable oils. I too had asthma and sinus issues, took 2 medication daily for the asthma. These have disappeared along with the joint pain but I have to be extremely disciplined in my diet and never eat these foods if I don't want these problems to return.

Jean

Anything that seems to cause havoc in my gut seems to do the same to my joints. Lots of foods on that list unfortunately. Even ones many lowcarbers enjoy. :(

So it's not necessarily weight related, not necessarily exacerbated by exercise.

But...


If it's diet related, especially if it's due to inflammatory foods in the diet, how exactly are the above mentioned Olympic athletes avoiding the inflammatory foods mentioned above? Because you know that the olympic food sponsor supported training tables are being provided with all kinds of processed carbs, and vegetable oil laden foods, since those are supposedly healthy and provide the energy that Olympic athletes need while training.

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How much is truly related to weight, exercise, and diet?

I suspect it's very much a YMMV thing, and can change, depending on genetic tendency to develop knee (or any joint) problems, age (if you're over 60, chances are you're going to start noticing some differences in your joints from when you were in your 20's), how overweight you were, how long you were overweight, and how much of your excess weight you managed to lose.

I have come to believe the common problem is inflammation.

Low carb is only one route to lower it. Different people may need more strategies than that.

In my case seed oils were a definite trigger.

As Taubes often says in his lectures, carbs (or generally speaking, diet as a whole) is the primary cause, not the only cause. There could be a second (or multiple) cause where carbs interact to amplify the effect. It's also possible that these other causes do things that carbs do not, where carbs would amplify those effects, but not when these other causes are not present, making carbs appear to work differently in different individuals. An example, some guy gets drunk, another guy with hepatitis gets drunk - different effects.

Health is the foundation of athletic performance. Considering the above, it's likely that athletes are healthy a priori, but once they get sick with whatever we regular folks get, they lose their edge. Imagine that same lifter in the video I posted. He's obviously eating lots of carbs to grow and stay that fat (he used to be very lean). Now imagine he gets sick with something that interacts with carbs in a way that causes joint or ligament pain for example. With joint pain, it's simple, there's pain when we lift weights, we could lift through it though not without serious strain on endurance, this then would affect practice and ultimately competitive performance. With ligaments (there's a sensing organ in there, don't remember the name at the moment), it's a feedback mechanism that automatically reduces muscle response locally without going through the central nervous system, as a normal response to excessive tension in order to protect the ligaments and bone-ligament connection - lower strength. Indeed, lifters practice with excessive weights but with very short motion to train the ligaments. This then allows them to produce greater power and with greater control for the lifts.

Thank you for using the word "effect(s)" correctly three times. :lol: It has been a long day for an English major.