Cartilage Creation
New joint tissue could keep people moving, reducing need for knee or hip replacements
By Nathan Seppa
Cartilage, the shock absorber of the body, has been bearing the brunt of a modern lifestyle.
This nerveless connective tissue allows bone to glide over bone without any repercussions — most of the time. But human cartilage evolved in an earlier age, in ancestors who lived shorter lives, carried less body weight and roamed an unpaved world. Nowadays, cartilage takes a constant and prolonged beating from which it has poor capacity to bounce back.
It’s not a good scenario for an aging population. As the go-between tissue in joints, cartilage can handle only so many jolts and jars before something has to give. When the daily grind wears the tissue down, or it gets damaged by more abrupt injury, the bones’ nerve cells become exposed. Movement can lead to a painful zing, the hallmark of osteoarthritis, which now affects more than 27 million people in the United States. In addition to pain, osteoarthritis shows up as stiff joints, cracking sounds, inflammation and bone spurs.