Hyaline CartilageHyaline Cartilage is subject to serious degenerative changes in joints because it has no blood supply. It's the very hard substance that lines the bones in a joint - it's the material that is found at the coalface when it comes to working joints.
Cartilage is what we call a connective tissue. It can be very flexible and soft as in the ear lobe, or flexible and tough as in a ligament or tendon. And what really interests us today, is the cartilage that lines the bones in our joints: Hyaline cartilage. It's very hard and slippery, enabling us to bend our knees, move our toes, take a great deal of weight in the hip, and flex and extend our spines. Our finger joints ... virtually all our joints with a few exceptions. Take particular note of the little white arrows. They show the movement of nutrients from the synovial fluid that sloshes about in the joint (not literally!) to the hyaline cartilage on the ends of bones. What is critical about cartilage is that, unlike other connective tissues like bone, it has no blood supply. It is utterly dependent on the "synovial fluid" within the joint for its nutrition. No rich, healthy sloshing fluid bathing the hyaline cartilage, and it will degenerate and die. And hurt. Pain. Put simply, damaged cartilage has far more limited ability to regenerate than bone does. Bone is flooded with blood. Cartilage not. Chondroitin sulphate. Does that say anything to you? Seen on the label of bottles in your health food store? The gelatinous "ground substance" of cartilage is make up largely of chondroitin sulphate, into which are embedded collagen and elastic fibres made of protein: hence you will see that chondroitin often comes with "glucosamine", the precursor of proteoglycans, substances found in cartilage. They make cartilage flexible and very resistant to compression - it's that property that interests us with the hyaline cartilage on the ends of bones. As articular cartilage, hyaline is found covering the articular surfaces of bones in synovial joints. It reduces friction, more slippery than ice, literally, and acts as a shock absorbing tissue. Hyaline cartilage also forms the costal cartilages where ribs attach to the sternum and is the tissue causing pain in Tietze's syndrome.
TIETZES SYNDROME CaseFile ...
In hyaline cartilage the protein collagen fibers that are imbedded in the chondroitin matrix are very uniform giving cartilage its hard, uniform and slippery-white appearance. Typically, perichondrium is found around hyaline cartilage.
FIBROCARTILAGE
When you lift something heavy, the nucleus bulges into the annulus and, being a liquid and thus incompressible, it also presses back against the vertebrae, pushing them apart. Healthy annular cartilage contains this bubble of water-rich, gelatinous gel (it looks a bit like egg-white) as it bulges. But diseased cartilage, particularly if you twist as the same time as bending and lifting, may rip, allow the gel to leak out. That is what Chiropractic is all about! Getting the gel back where it belongs, without the use of drugs and surgery. CARTILAGE ENEMIESOBESITYIn a normal knee, for example, there is a space between the two hyaline cartilage plates, one femur, one tibia. In obesity, these bones are forced against each other and, because the growing part of the cartilage is at the surface, the pressure damages the growing chondrocytes. Obese woman are particularly vulnerable, but men are certainly not exempt.PAIN!
SMOKINGAll living tissue needs oxygen. Nerve tissue, denied oxygen, dies within minutes. Cartilage takes a little long, but the process is essentially the same: starved of oxygen, cartilage ages much faster, and the chances of restoration are much less.In back surgery it is well recognised that smoking is the biggest risk factor. Put differently, it is the greatest single factor likely to put the patient into what is known as FBS. Failed Back Surgery. The healing tissues simply don't get enough oxygen. Ask any Chiropractor, and s/he will confirm that in the treatment of acute low back pain with Chiropractic adjustments, that smoking with us too makes recovery more difficult. It takes longer, and the chances that you won't respond as well to chiropractic are much greater. ATHEROSCLEROSIS SYMPTOMS Low Back Pain research indicates there is a close association between vascular disease and Lumbar Disc Degeneration. Read more
POOR DIETAs in all disease, lack of the proper nutrients and vitamins, food rich in glucosamine and chondroitin and gelatine, the chances of the cartilage in your neck or back, knee or ankle, healing are much lower. There is now quite strong research from Harvard Medical School confirming that a rich bouillon made from bones does indeed help restore cartilage:IMMOBILISATIONThere is now oddles of research confirming that joints that don't move rapidly become arthritic. Or, to put it differently, cartilage starved of fresh synovial fluid sloshing about the joint, layering the cartilage with a substance called Hyaluronic acid, rapidly loses it glistening white slippery properties. It's called Immobilisation Arthritis. The cartilage starts to die ... degeneration and pain ...Add to this the waste products of cartilage metabolism that are not quickly removed ... that is why Chiropractic subluxlations are a disaster waiting to happen.
CHIROPRACTIC SUBLUXATIONS ... SUMMARYCartilage lacks a blood supply and is restored far more slowly than other living tissues. But, given the right environment, your aging hyaline cartilage, and other types of cartilages as in the intervertebral disc, can heal, BUT it requires a diet correct, rich in the necessary ingredients, plenty of oxygen, and plenty of movement.
And that is exactly what Chiropractic is all about!
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