By Eve Prang Plews
New understanding of the nutrient needs of muscles and joints can enable practitioners to better advise clients on how to supplement the healing process. The biochemistry of pain is now being unlocked. Tissue is
revealing
to researchers several distinct patterns of nutrient needs.Glucosamine hit the news and shelves like a blast, quickly becoming one of the top 10 nutrients purchased in America. Yet there is clearly a good, bad and ugly version of this helpful nutrient. Most of the research done by the Italians who learned to stabilize this molecule was performed on glucosamine sulfate. Nonetheless, glucosamine hydrochloride is often sold under the guise of acting in the same way as the sulfate version, but no significant research to date validates that claim. Indeed, the hydrochloride form is less expensive, and both the clinician and the public often don’t know there is a difference between the sulfate of glucosamine and the hydrochloride, thus choosing the bargain version with disappointing results.
As with many nutrients, often a little bit does nothing while the clinically relevant dose accomplishes huge improvements. So it is with glucosamine sulfate. Using 1,500 mg of this nutrient three times daily for four months before evaluation is the most beneficial dose according to current research. Some bodies respond to small doses, quickly effecting improvement within weeks. But the high-need client with poor diet may need both the 1,500 mg a day dose and the four-month schedule until true improvements can be measured.
If no or low results are noted after that time and dosing schedule, it is unlikely that more product or longer dosing schedules will improve the joint. Often, after maximum improvement has been noted, some clients can reduce the dose to 1,000 mg daily and maintain the improvement. Rarely can it be maintained at 500 mg a day.
While the value of glucosamine sulfate is widely accepted, chondroitin sulfate (which supposedly gives cartilage elasticity) is still in question. While there is little doubt that some of it moves through the gut wall, the molecule is huge compared to glucosamine, so little of this nutrient is likely to transport through the gut to be of benefit. Simply put, it may be not worth the money.
Methylsulfonylmethane (a.k.a. MSM, a naturally occurring nutrient which provides sulfur to the body) in glucosamine sulfate formulas does add both healing and pain control. Just remember all other sulfur donors can do similar things. N-acetyl cystein, SAM-e and high sulfur foods all support the same pathways. The food list includes asparagus, onions, garlic and all members of the cabbage family: broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, arugula, Brussels sprouts, kale, turnips and others in the family. The non-vegetables include eggs and seeds as sulfur sources.
Looking now at nutrients for soft tissue, three categories are important: treatment for swelling, pain control and connective tissue nutrients. Chymotrypsin is multi-faceted enzyme acting in the gut to aid in protein digestion and transporting through the gut wall to scavenge for debris within the body; it controls swelling quickly. It’s rare to have to use chymotrypsin for more than a few days, rarely a few weeks, as the reduction in swelling greatly lessens further tissue damage, pain and thus recovery time. It is best used between meals in significant doses like 15,000-90,000 USP units per dose two to five times a day. From black eyes to sprained ankles, from ballooned knees to torn muscles, chymotrypsin should be high up in the top nutrient formulas used for controlling swelling.
Pain can be reduced with nature’s own COX-2 inhibitors—the herbs ginger and its cousin, turmeric. Their actions follow the research that brought Celebrex and Vioxx to the market without the documented (and growing) list of side effects, including gastric bleeding, that faulted prior NSAID and aspirin therapy. Once again, high dosing (300 to 400 mg ginger and 300 to 900 mg turmeric) at the time of a trauma or surgery may only need be maintained for days, then the dose can be reduced to your client’s needs. Long-term daily intake may be required for arthritis or permanent limitation of any range of motion. Ginger and turmeric are two very safe herbs used for thousands of years, and it has been speculated that perhaps one reason why India has the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s disease is because of the common daily use of these herbs in culinary doses. It’s food for thought.
Boswellia, another classic anti-inflammatory, acts on the liopxygenase pathway—one that no current drug suppresses. This expensive herb may or may not add additional pain relief as not everyone’s pain expresses itself down the lipoxygenase inflammatory pathway. Experiment to see which combination gives the most relief.
Remember both the cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase pro-inflammatory pain triggers are fed by anachodonic acid whose source is often animal fat. Have your patients consider reducing total meat fat and dairy fat intake; the result is often that pain is subsequently reduced.
Damage to any category of connective tissue requires rapid response. The synthesis of new connective tissue requires the building blocks for collagen. As the most abundant protein in the body, collagen is made up of long protein chains of proline, lysine, cysteine and others. Glycine is one third of collagen. The fiber further requires zinc, copper, iron and manganese and other trace minerals to repair. Vitamin C must also be present for collagen to be manufactured. Substrate nutrients given three times a day for 10 days can greatly reduce recovery time, pain and thus costs.
There is a prevention and wellness standard of nutrients that the body requires. Separately, there is a scheduled dosing of nutrients that is unique to injury treatment. These “repair formulas” should be included as the first line of defense along with therapy, rest and good nutrition. Learn to use nature’s laws to help heal your clients and they too will see the “miracle” of natural health.
Eve Prang Plews has been involved in nutritional counseling since 1977 and has operated the multi-faceted Full Spectrum Health in Sarasota, Fla., since 1988. She holds a license from the Florida Board of Medicine as a nutrition counselor and has been involved in nutritional counseling since 1977. She makes regular appearances on the homeopathic radio show “Jump Start Your Health” to discuss natural remedies to drugs.