Chocolate Moose, Anyone?

Osteoarthritis seems to run in my family. I can feel its warning signs as I try to make that bunker shot out of thick sand – by the way, “golf” is my handicap – a sharp pain in my hands at the point of contact. And osteo is a quality of life killer, adding billions of dollars every year to the cost of medical care as knees and hips are routinely replaced, having outworn their ability to carry the human frame. 27 million Americans are afflicted, one out of seven over the age of 25, and the statistic is growing. Theories abound on what causes this serious deterioration of the cartilage that pads the joints where bones intersect. Obesity is a “big” one, since extra weight on bones would seem to cause crushing long-term damage. Heredity is next on that list. But recently, medical researchers have pointed to a possibly different cause: diet.

The hints came as scientists began to examine the bones of moose who perished in their natural environment on Lake Superior’s Isle Royale; the study embraced fifty years. A limping arthritic moose is quite literally “dead meat” in a land of fast-moving packs of gray wolves. So when arthritis appeared in moose bones, researchers began to compile statistics. Shock! They discovered smaller meese (ok, moose) were susceptible to the disease. It appeared that the fate of these soon-to-be-eaten-by-wolves moose may have been sealed as early as the months they were carried in their mother’s womb. Nutrition appeared to be the determinant.

The August 17^th New York Times: “[T]he moose work, along with some human research, suggests arthritis’s origins are more complex, probably influenced by early exposures to nutrients and other factors while our bodies are developing. Even obesity’s link to arthritis probably goes beyond extra pounds, experts say, to include the impact on the body of eating the wrong things… Nutrients, experts say, might influence composition or shape of bones, joints or cartilage. Nutrition might also affect hormones, the likelihood of later inflammation or oxidative stress, even how a genetic predisposition for arthritis is expressed or suppressed. ”

Indeed, correlations between “small” and osteoarthritis can be found in humans, notes the Times: “British scientists studying people born in the 1940s found low birth weight (indicating poor prenatal nutrition) linked to osteoarthritis in the men’s hands…” Does genetic predisposition toward arthritis accelerate the impact of bad nutrition, as many experts suggest, or can nutrition alone be the determining factor? And if we can identify the nutritional deficiencies in humans, think about the impact on both the quality of life for millions and the reduction in medical costs that would result.

“Dr. David Barker, a British expert on how nutrition and early development influence cardiac and other conditions, said ‘studies of people in utero during the Great Chinese Famine’ of the late 1950s found that ‘40, 50 years later, those people have got disabilities.’ … Overeating can be as problematic as under-eating. Dr. Lisa A. Fortier, a large-animal orthopedist at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, said she saw ‘abnormal joint and tendon development from excessive nutrition’ in horses overfed ‘in utero or in the postnatal life,’ probably ingesting ‘too much of the wrong type of sugar that may cause levels of inflammation.’” The Times.

We’ve got a long way to go in identifying the precise nutritional links, but the key word for future generations, anyway, is “hope.” While stem cell research may ultimately give the body the capacity to regenerate joint cartilage, perhaps prevention is a better and vastly more cost effective solution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and “hope” is a very attractive word.