Why Arthritis is Getting Worse and What to Do about It

Researchers in Great Britain recently asked an interesting question.

Why are so many people with and without officially diagnosed arthritis reporting to hospitals with exactly the same types of joint pain?

The team wondered how humans came to have the kind of positioning of bones that leads people to develop arthritis and pain issues. So, they decided to consult the way the human body has evolved to answer.

And this may lead to the easiest treatment for arthritis.

Scientists at Nuffield Department of Orthopedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Oxford authored the study, looking at people’s reports of pain at the front of the knee, hip pain, and shoulder pain when lifting the arms above the head, as they were the most common joint complaints.

They collected 128 slice CT scans and 224 bone specimens from reptiles, dinosaurs, primates, and humans over the past 350 million years, scanned all of them, and used 3D engineering to plot the changes in the arrangement of the bones over time.

They made some interesting discoveries.

They found the necks of our thighbones have become much thicker as we progressed from walking on four legs to walking on two only. This was obviously important to enable our hips and thighs to take all our weight, part of which our arms used to carry when we still walked on all fours.

However, this necessary thickening of the neck of the thighbone has made it too big to fit comfortably into the hip joint, increasing the likelihood of hip pain.

Something similar has happened to our shoulders.

A gap in our shoulders through which tendons and blood vessels pass has narrowed over the years, limiting the moving space of the tendons that become active when we reach over our heads.

Together with mapping our past bone development, the scientists used these models to estimate what our bodies will look like 4,000 years from now, finding that the current structural trends and their resulting aches and pains will probably increase.

These studies are useful because they show that joint replacements will have to be adjusted to match the shape of our evolving bodies, but the researchers also suggest that regular flexibility exercises, muscle strength training, and good posture can help to mitigate the effects of evolution.

But what can we do now – not 4,000 years from now?

I was practically immobile with arthritis pain, suffering for years as inflammation broke my spirit more and more each day. Until the remarkable discovery of one simple ingredient that changed my life…