What arthritis is doing in the joint after 60
A listener named Gil asked him what causes osteoarthritis and whether it can be reversed. His first move is to refuse the idea that it is one thing.
Dr. Martin on the causes:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519Osteoarthritis can be caused by a lot of things.
Then he explains what is actually going on in there, and it is not the explanation most women get.
Dr. Martin on the joint:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519Osteoarthritis is in the joint usually guys, because it's the body trying to get you not to move it, it hurts the body lays down calcium and inflammation to try and heal and it can be very painful.
Read that again, because it inverts the usual picture. The calcium is not debris. The inflammation is not the disease. Both, on his reading, are a repair job, and the pain is the body's way of keeping you off a joint it is working on. It can be very painful, he says, and he does not pretend otherwise.
Injury, and why it shows up decades later
The first cause he names is the most ordinary one, and it is the reason a woman of 65 can have one bad knee and one fine knee on the same body.
Dr. Martin on what he saw:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519I don't know how many times I saw men and women played sports, hurt their knee, then they become bone on bone and get osteoarthritis.
Played sports, hurt a knee, and thirty or forty years later that is the joint that goes. It is worth saying out loud because it is the clearest evidence against calling arthritis your age. Your age is the same in both knees.
The sugar link he calls caramelization
Here is the cause that is still in front of you, unlike a netball injury from 1974.
Dr. Martin on sugar in the joint:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519Joints can be affected by sugar and glycation, what we call the caramelization of a joint.
Caramelization is his word for it and it is a good one, because everybody knows what heat and sugar do in a pan. Glycation is sugar attaching itself to proteins where it was not supposed to, and the tissue that results is stiffer and less springy than the tissue you started with. In a joint, springy is the entire point.
He adds that orthopedic surgeons know all about it, which is his way of saying this is not a fringe idea.
Insulin resistance and joints
Sugar does not arrive at the joint on its own. He puts it at the end of a stream that starts higher up.
Dr. Martin on the sequence:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519You get the downward stream of insulin and insulin resistance and one of the things that affects is joints.
That is the same stream he traces for a lot of things, which is why a page about knees ends up sounding like a page about blood sugar. Insulin goes up and stays up, the body gets less responsive to it, glucose spends more time in circulation, and the tissues most exposed to it are the ones that take the damage. Joints are on that list.
It is also why he keeps sending people back to the gut on questions like this. That argument is all disease starts in the gut.
Can it be reversed
Gil asked directly, and this is where an honest answer matters more than a good one.
He says he has seen it get a lot better. A lot better, in his words. He then immediately adds the condition: it depends how advanced it is. He does not say every joint comes back and he does not put a number on it.
That is the claim as he made it, and it is the claim this page will make. A joint that has been bone on bone for twenty years is not the same problem as a joint that has been sore for two, and he treats them differently.
The 30 days he put patients on
What he did with all of the above was practical. He took the sugar out for a month and watched what happened.
Dr. Martin on the 30 days:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1519All I'm saying is that a lot of times with people on the reset, they do 30 days and their joints are better, they have less inflammation, they have less pain, they have more movement.
All I'm saying, he starts, which is him deliberately keeping the claim small. This was common feedback, not a trial. But it is the cleanest test available to a woman reading this, because it costs nothing, it takes a month, and the joints either feel different or they do not.
Movement belongs in there too. Strong muscle around a joint takes load off the joint itself, which is why he pushed movement alongside everything else rather than telling people to rest a painful knee indefinitely.
What he reached for
In this episode he names it himself. Asked about osteoarthritis, he says he is big on the inflammation formula.
He is also honest about what a supplement is not. When a listener said she tried curcumin on its own and it did not help, he did not argue her out of it. His position on any single ingredient is that it is one part of the job, and the food is still the food.
For the wider version of this, covering hips and hands as well as knees, we wrote what causes joint pain after 60. And if your joint trouble comes in attacks rather than steadily, red meat and gout is the one to read instead.
None of this is a diagnosis, and nothing here is a reason to stop anything you have been prescribed for pain or for anything else.
Common questions
What causes arthritis in women over 60?
He says a lot of things can. The ones he names are old injuries, sugar and glycation, and the insulin resistance sitting upstream of both.
Can osteoarthritis be reversed?
His answer is that he has seen it get a lot better, and that it depends how advanced it is. He does not promise a reversal and neither does this page.
Does sugar make arthritis worse?
He says joints can be affected by sugar and glycation, which he calls the caramelization of a joint, and he notes orthopedic surgeons know all about it.
Why does an arthritic joint hurt so much?
On his mechanism, the body lays down calcium and inflammation to try and heal, and the pain is there to stop you moving it. He says it can be very painful.
What did his patients do?
They did 30 days off sugar. The common feedback he reports is better joints, less inflammation, less pain and more movement.
Read next: The Inflammation That Helps You And The Inflammation That Does Not and Knee Pain After 60: What Is Wearing The Joint Down.
What he reached for
Martin Clinic's Inflammation Formula is the one he names in this episode when the question is osteoarthritis. It is what he built for the inflammation end of the problem.
60-day money-back guarantee.These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult your healthcare practitioner before starting a new supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition.
