• The body’s own stem cells have a positive effect on osteoarthritis-related inflammation in the knee.
• A study now wants to clarify whether they actually build up permanent cartilage.
• A transplant can repair minor cartilage damage in young patients.

After a certain age, signs of wear and tear become noticeable in the knee . After the age of 30, the risk increases linearly. The painful, inflammatory breakdown of cartilage in the operating room and with an artificial knee ends 150,000 times a year. Then smooth metal has to replace the cartilage layer, which allows round, painless movements in a healthy knee.

The idea frightens many people suffering from osteoarthritis. They hope for new methods to rebuild lost cartilage: stem cells should help.

Belly fat provides the best stem cell material

The doctor uses the patient’s belly fat as a starting material. The idea behind it: stem cells can be obtained particularly easily and in relatively large numbers from vascular fat tissue. Injected at the location of the defect, they learn from the microenvironment into which cell type they should develop.

According to this principle, the doctor and stem cell researcher Eckhard Alt uses the undifferentiated cells : Stem cells from the patient’s fat tissue are processed in the operating room within an hour and injected into the patient where he needs them – for example into the osteoarthritis knee.

The founder of the “Interdisciplinary Stem Cells Research Center” in Houston and a private clinic in Munich sees stem cells as the future therapy for chronic inflammatory diseases of the musculoskeletal system – among other things.

The cell extract in the knee does not guarantee success

Some orthopedic practices that offer the procedure honestly state that it is a not generally recognized attempt at healing with no guarantee of success. Rather, it is a final experimental attempt to remedy knee problems without a joint replacement.

“In this so-called ‘point-of-care’ application, a cell extract is injected that not only consists of stem cells,” explains Oliver Pullig from the Fraunhofer Translational Center for Regenerative Medicine in Würzburg. How many stem cells that are supposed to develop into cartilage material actually get into the knee is just as little regulated as the preparation of the suctioned off belly fat.

Stem cells instead of knee prostheses

A Europe-wide study is currently looking for scientific evidence of the anti-osteoarthritis potential of the body’s own stem cells.

A small one with six patients in Würzburg and twelve in Montpellier, France, led to success in 2013: Almost all participants canceled their previously unavoidable operation for a knee prosthesis. “Your complaints had improved throughout,” explains Oliver Pullig. “A reconstruction of cartilage was unlikely with such a large damage.”

The follow-up study that has just begun with 153 participants at ten European locations therefore fulfills a requirement that the German study director Ulrich Nöth from the Evangelical Forest Hospital Berlin-Spandau formulated back then: Stem cell therapy is best suited for patients with middle and middle-aged osteoarthritis. You are no longer eligible for a cartilage transplant, but you are too young to have an artificial joint.

New cartilage from stem cells? A study should show it

Like the pilot study, the ADIPOA2 study uses so-called mesenchymal stem cells from the abdominal fat of each subject. These precursor cells of the connective tissue have the ability to develop into cartilage, bone or fat cells.

Biologist Oliver Pullig explains: “We take 100 milliliters of belly fat from each participant. The stem cells obtained from this are multiplied millions of times in special laboratories. That takes a good two weeks. 51 patients then receive two million of these pure stem cells injected into the joint, 51 patients receive an injection with 10 million cells and 51 patients receive a placebo. “

Results should be available by the end of 2018, and thus scientific proof of whether stem cells fulfill the hope of permanently building cartilage. The scientist is optimistic: “If successful, the therapy with stem cells as a drug could be ready for the market at the next study level. It doesn’t take five years. “

Cartilage transplant only helps to a limited extent

Another method to restore lost cartilage is transplantation, which has been tried and tested for 20 years. So far, however, it has only been successful in the case of centimeter damage in an otherwise intact knee. The operation is laborious and the healing process long.

In the first keyhole surgery, the doctor removes a small piece of healthy cartilage, hardly larger than a grain of rice. These cartilage cells are propagated in the laboratory in three to four weeks. In a second operation, the surgeon places these cells or the cartilage patch on the defective area in the knee.

After that, the knee must not be subjected to any load for six weeks, then only lightly for another six weeks. Only after a year is the joint stable enough for sport to be possible.

Cartilage from the laboratory is expensive

The transplant is only suitable for younger knee patients whose cartilage and joints are free from osteoarthritis. If this therapy is successful, it can prevent further cartilage damage and a later threatened knee prosthesis.

Then, in the long term, the costs of several thousand euros for cells grown in a laboratory will pay off.

Hyaluronic acid can at least relieve pain

If these methods are out of the question, another remedy can help: synthetic hyaluronic acid is often misunderstood as a substance for building up cartilage. However, it cannot produce worn cartilage, but serves as a lubricant and for joint care.

Orthopedic surgeons inject the moisture-retaining gel three to five times at weekly intervals. Hyaluronic acid relieves pain and promotes mobility – permanently for some patients, at least for a year or two for others. Then the treatment can be repeated.

According to popular belief, those who eat vegetables, fruit and whole grain products every day have a particularly healthy diet – and thus possibly make a dangerous mistake, get fat and sick. The American cardiologist and nutritionist Steven R. Gundry is convinced of this, as he explains in his bestseller “The Plant Paradox”, which has also been available as a German version since this year (Steven R. Gundry: “Bad vegetables. How healthy Food makes us sick ”, Beltz).

Vegetable plants use lectins for defense

Lectins are said to be responsible for the harmful effects of supposedly healthy foods. These are certain proteins that plants have developed for defense so that they are spared from fungi, bacteria and parasites. In fact, lectins act similarly to antibiotics and can be toxic, especially when raw.

The substances can harm people

Lectins make green potatoes and raw beans inedible . The best-known lectin is gluten, avoided by many because it can lead to bowel inflammation and celiac disease . Gluten, known as adhesive protein, illustrates the negative properties of lectins particularly impressively: These proteins are extremely easy to bond, stick to cells and tissues, preferably in the intestine. The mucous membrane cells change, the intestinal wall becomes permeable for pollutants, which in turn can make the entire organism sick.

Sick from lectins – from Alzheimer’s to rheumatism

But not only celiac disease is caused by the harmful effects of lectins. The proteins bind to red blood cells, thicken the blood and thus promote arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. Steven Gundry also explains many other diseases of civilization with the negative effects of lectins.

Because they can actually dock on all tissues, such as the pancreas, joints, bronchi, nerves, brain, and the immune system attacks them there as intruders, autoimmune diseases would develop: diabetes , arthritis and rheumatism, asthma , Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s .

These foods are high in lectins

The doctor therefore promotes a diet that is as free from lectins as possible (LFE, lectin-free diet). The negative list of foods rich in lectin includes the following products:

• loaf
• Potatoes and potato products
• rice
• pasta
• Beans and legumes
• soy
• tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• pumpkin
• Grain
• Vegetable oils
• sugar

Steven Gundry also largely avoids fish and meat, or at least restricts consumption – because breeding animals are mainly fed with corn and soy. Both types of food naturally contain lectins. If they are genetically modified, however, they provide even more of it to protect the plants from pests even better. With the feed they get into the animal and thus into the meat that is put on the plate.

How to eat a lectin-free diet

The negative list is long, but there are also a number of foods that contain little or no lectins. The positive list of desirable foods suggests, among other things:

• Coconut oil
• Coconut milk
• Hazelnuts
• Walnuts
• Sweet chestnuts
• Olives
• Tigernut flour, chestnut flour
• Dark chocolate
• cream cheese
• Goat cheese
• butter
• cream
• Crustaceans, fish (rare)
• certain types of fruit in small quantities (apples, pears, blueberries, raspberries, kiwi, plums, peaches, citrus fruits)
• Cabbage vegetables of all kinds
• artichokes
• garlic
• Onions
• Meat (no more than 125 gr per day)
• Eggs
• Sweeteners such as erythritol, stevia, xylitol
• 1 glass of red wine per day

Of course, all products should come from organic cultivation or rearing if possible, i.e. have the best organic quality.

Lectin-free diet – new fad diet or serious prevention and therapy?

At first glance, the impression arises: after fructose, gluten and carbohydrates, lectins are now supposed to be the bad nutrients that lead to obesity and make you sick. But the impression is deceptive. Steven Gundry’s observations should probably be taken seriously. There is some evidence for his theses:

• It has long been known that lectins are unfavorable and are therefore even referred to as ” anti-nutrients ” in nutritional science . But this fact has had little impact on nutrition plans and diets until now.
• Initial studies show that lectins can be linked to rheumatism and Parkinson’s disease .

However, there is (still) a lack of larger studies on the extent to which lectins can promote obesity and illness. However, in a self-experiment, Steven Gundry lost 35 kilograms within a year and at the same time lowered his high blood pressure , and the arthritis had also disappeared.

The doctor treated around 1,000 patients on the basis of these positive experiences with the LFE. He observed 200 of them as part of a study . For six months, the patients who all had cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery disease ate according to this diet. After completing the examination, her heart function and blood values ​​had improved significantly.

Conclusion: It should definitely not be a fashion diet. However, LFE cannot be easily integrated into everyday life, the usual nutrition plan has to be fundamentally redesigned. But to make this as uncomplicated as possible, the doctor gives many tips and simple to fine recipes in his new guide on “bad vegetables”.

Magnesium is particularly well known in connection with magnesium deficiency and cramps. This applies to nocturnal calf cramps, but also massive cramps in athletes. But this important role that magnesium takes on for well-functioning muscles, only reflects a tiny aspect of its very broad spectrum of activity with diverse, vital functions.

What is magnesium

Magnesium is a mineral and belongs to the group of metals. This mineral is essential. This means that the body cannot produce magnesium itself, but the mineral is vital and must therefore be supplied with the diet. It is then absorbed through the intestinal walls and gets into the blood. Any excess is excreted through the kidneys with the urine. High fat foods, oxalates and phosphates can slow down the absorption of magnesium in the intestine.

Around 25 grams of magnesium are present in the organism (in a person weighing 70 kilograms). A good half is in the bones, a little less in the muscles and only one percent in the blood. The bones also act as magnesium stores. However, the magnesium content in bones decreases over the course of life.

In addition, minerals are divided into bulk and trace elements. Magnesium is one of the bulk elements because the body needs relatively large amounts of it, unlike trace elements such as iodine and copper.

Why Magnesium is Vital

Magnesium is involved in the activation of over 300 enzymes in the body, including in the protein structure. The mineral takes on decisive tasks for energy and cell metabolism and regulates many vital functions, including:

• Impulse transmission in muscle and nerve cells, magnesium ensures normal conduction of excitation in nerves and muscles. In connection with nerves, magnesium also supports brain functions and via the muscles, for example, the heart muscle. Adequate magnesium intake even seems to reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death, a study suggests.
• Magnesium influences the heart rhythm and blood pressure.
• It relaxes muscles, nerves and blood vessels and can reduce the production of stress hormones. This normalization of the excitability of nerves and the vascular tension is probably responsible for the fact that with an adequate supply of magnesium, among other things, the number of migraine attacks demonstrably decreases, as the analysis of several studies showed.
• Magnesium can reduce the clumping of blood platelets, so it can support normal blood clotting. The risk of having a stroke decreases when the body receives enough magnesium, further research shows .
• It is involved in the utilization of glucose and in blood sugar control. The risk of type 2 diabetes has been shown to decrease if the mineral is taken in sufficiently.
• Magnesium is an important antagonist of calcium, prevents too much calcium from being stored, for example in muscles, but also vessels and organs. Magnesium can prevent the formation of kidney stones, which often consist of calcium oxalate.
• In addition, magnesium can neutralize too much stomach acid somewhat and thus reduce the risk of heartburn.
• In conjunction with calcium and vitamin D, magnesium controls the bone metabolism. Among other things, magnesium supports the activation of vitamin D in the kidneys. Magnesium is therefore an important factor in preventing osteoporosis. Already existing osteoporosis could be slowed down somewhat by adequate intake, as a study suggests.
• The mineral regulates important messenger substances that also play a role in the mental mood. Studies show that magnesium can have a similar effect on mild depression as certain antidepressants , the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). 

Overall, these and similar studies provide strong indications that an adequate supply of magnesium, including through dietary supplements, is associated with a lower risk of numerous common diseases.