Is bone and joint damage irreversible? How to prevent osteoarthritis in life? This is what you should do to prevent osteoarthritis!

Author: Tang Qin, Researcher of Chinese Medical Association

Reviewer: Zhang Xin, deputy chief physician, Peking University Third Hospital

Some elderly people often have to endure the pain caused by osteoarthritis, which limits many activities. Many elderly patients with severe osteoarthritis can only take conservative treatments, many of which are not effective, causing serious troubles for themselves and their families.

So, why do people suffer from osteoarthritis? How can we prevent osteoarthritis in our daily lives?

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1. What is osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a chronic degenerative bone and joint disease caused by constant wear and tear of the joints, aging, cartilage damage, and bone hyperplasia. This disease is more common in the elderly and is a common disease in the elderly.

However, in recent years, the incidence of osteoarthritis has been trending towards younger people. Some people begin to experience joint pain before the age of 30, which affects their mobility and even causes osteoarthritis prematurely.

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2. Causes and symptoms of osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis often occurs in weight-bearing joints or joints with high activity, such as the cervical vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae, knee joints, hip joints, etc., and often involves tissues such as cartilage, synovium, and joint capsule.

There are two types of this disease. One is primary osteoarthritis, the cause of which is not yet fully understood. Medically, it is believed that it may be related to genetics, age, obesity and body damage, and most cases occur in middle-aged and elderly people. The other is secondary osteoarthritis, which is a type of osteoarthritis lesion that basically occurs on the basis of the original lesion. The main causes are infection, joint instability, trauma, metabolic diseases, congenital joint deformities, etc. Secondary osteoarthritis is not only common in middle-aged and elderly people, but also in young and middle-aged people.

Young people usually carry more weight and spend more time on daily activities, so the degree of joint wear is more serious than that of middle-aged and elderly people. However, young people often ignore this problem when there are no symptoms or the symptoms are mild. Over time, once the pain becomes unbearable, the cartilage is often severely worn and difficult to repair.

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Generally speaking, slowly progressive joint pain, tenderness, swelling, noise, deformity, stiffness, and limited movement are typical clinical manifestations of osteoarthritis. Severe symptoms can lead to disability.

Therefore, whether you are old or young, you should take joint discomfort seriously, and it is particularly important to take preventive measures in advance.

How to prevent osteoarthritis

For osteoarthritis, prevention is far more important than treatment. In daily life, the following six aspects should be taken to prevent osteoarthritis.

1. Change bad habits In daily work and life, pay attention to the protection of joints, try to reduce activities that cause great damage to joints, avoid high-intensity exercises such as mountain climbing, climbing stairs, treadmill running, playing badminton, etc. Be careful not to sit, stand or walk for a long time. Try to avoid lifting, carrying or carrying heavy objects on your shoulders. Pay attention to the combination of work and rest, and master the work and rest time.

2. Control your weight and avoid being too fat . Relatively speaking, obese people are at a greater risk of osteoarthritis than people of normal weight. Maintaining a normal weight can reduce the pressure and wear on bones and joints, thereby reducing the body's weight and effectively reducing the possibility of osteoarthritis.

3. Choose the right exercise method and exercise intensity. Although exercise is good for health, high-intensity exercise is a burden on the body's organs and bones and joints, which becomes more obvious with age. Therefore, you should choose the right exercise method according to your own situation, such as swimming, cycling, walking, etc., which are all good choices. It should be noted that you should take good protective measures during exercise to avoid injuries due to improper operation.

4. Pay attention to the balanced diet. It is recommended to eat more soy products, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, as well as seafood such as fish, seaweed, and kelp. These foods can not only supplement calcium for bones, but also prevent calcium loss.

5. Keep your joints warm In daily life, you should keep your joints warm and avoid cold weather to prevent cold air and infection by bacteria and viruses. For young people, don’t be reckless just because you are young. When dressing, you should pay attention to style rather than temperature. You should protect the health of your bones and joints.

6. Appropriate supplementation of glucosamine and calcium can increase cartilage and bone strength and prevent and treat osteoporosis.

In short, the formation of osteoarthritis is a long process, and most people cannot recover. Therefore, it is very important to prevent osteoarthritis. Only by paying enough attention and abandoning unhealthy lifestyles can we prevent it early and delay the occurrence of osteoarthritis.

References

[1] Bao Xuezhi, Tang Weicai. Youth also has its share of worries: how young people can prevent osteoarthritis[J]. Oriental Health, 2021, 4:43.