Tendons, ligaments, cartilage are composed of collagen. There are articles saying that collagen supplementation can help with tendon injuries. Where is the scientific evidence to support these claims? How is ingestion of collagen linked to an increase in collagen synthesis in the body?
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C26&q=collagen+supplement++tendon+injuries&btnG=
A Review Article of 46 studies revealed that clinical results are very encouraging, however they are not fully confirmed by clinical studies. At this time, it is not possible to draw any definitive raccomendations on the use of nutraceutical supplementation in tendinopathies.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016 Jan-Mar; 6(1): 48–57.
Nutraceutical supplement in the management of tendinopathies: a systematic review. Federico Fusini, Salvatore Bisicchia,Carlo Bottegoni,Antonio Gigante, Fabio Zanchini, and Alberto Busilacchi
Vladimir. I hope this helps. -Paul
I did work in tendon injury area. I strongly believe if you do your blood analysis and there is no deficiency of any thing and Doctor do not recommend to take anything to compensate. All supplements of vitamins minerals are pure money making business and scare people to use them. Many times excessive supplements are harming people. If a pregnant lady take multiple supplements, it can harm the baby development. They can be very dangerous. Never ever take any thing. Eat natural food. Take supplement if you have deficiency shown proven in your blood analysis and has been recommended by your family doctor or educated MD specialist. Never stop any food unless it is recommended by your doctor. In conclusion, supplements is not useful rather it can damage unnecessarily.
Many thanks for the replies, I have an interest in this topic because I have a quadriceps tendon tear in my left leg that I've been healing from, occurred maybe 5 or 6 months ago. I believe nutrition is the first medicine and that an understanding of body biochemistry and supplements can lead to good outcomes.
No , There is no evidence that collagen supplement helps with tendon injuries.
When you chew, drink, or swallow collagen, it immediately hits your digestive tract. You digest it the same way you do any other natural protein: into individual amino acids. Your body can't bring those aminos directly to the site of the injury in order to create or rebuild tendons and ligaments. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that what you’re ingesting can actually be used by your body…It goes through your body and comes out as waste
As I mention, take supplements only if your blood analysis show deficiency or specialist doctor tell you. For example, vegetarians generally have Vitamin B12 deficiency since they do not eat meat. And my doctor told me to take B12 supplement. So I do.
Dear Fellow Researchers
Thank you for providing answers, I much appreciate your efforts.
Hippocrates said it best: “Let food be thy medicine, let medicine be thy food”
I am aware of the numerous health benefits from fasting including autophagy, a very interesting process. I think that fasting is appropriate in certain circumstances and not in all.
This is an interesting comment that you make Ligen Yu and I would like to question it?
“This will trigger autophagy, which can greatly quicken up the healing process.”
On what premise and evidence do you make this comment that autophagy triggered as a result of fasting, ie. zero nutrient intake, can greatly quicken up the healing process?
My first thought would be do disagree with that statement and to think that if there is damage in need of repair, you must furnish the body with additional (in excess) raw materials for the repair process.
This means amino acids and vitamins that will reconstruct the injured tissue, without these essential raw materials there will be a lack of new synthesis of structures.
Similar to a punctured bicycle tire, how will the hole in the rubber be patched up to seal in the air, how can it be repaired without additional materials? I’ve always been of the thought that if there is an injury there are certain raw materials that must be consumed daily for the efficient repair process, the body has many biochemical reactions and it can synthesize many things it needs but there are also many things it cannot synthesize for example vitamin C, it must be consumed daily, particularly for collagen synthesis.
The wording in your comment suggests that lack of nutrient intake is beneficial to the healing process due to autophagy, perhaps this is one element to the equation, the second part of the statement stipulates that autophagy can greatly quicken up the healing process, how do you know this?
I do not agree with the statement “Supplements do more harm than good”. I think that it all depends on how the supplements are used. I believe supplement have a place in nutrition and in helping the body stay healthy. One example is probiotics, for probiotics there is scientific evidence to support their benefit on digestive function and the immune system and ability to cope with allergies.
“Supplements do more harm than good”. I think supplements can do harm if taken in excess, I tend to think that if the body needs it, it will make use of it and if the body doesn’t then it will excrete it.
I do not feel confident to talk to my Dr about such things as nutrition because I feel that they do not really know or give you any answers or information that is useful because they approach medicine with drugs and they focus on that because that is what they know, that is their training and in the scope of their practice. I feel I know more than Dr in my head when it comes to nutrients and body biochemistry and much knowledge can be obtained from internet, library etc. or through self-experiment.
As a researcher I am very skeptical and learn not to trust Dr and always ask questions and seek the information and the evidence for myself and that is why I post this question here on this forum to see what other people know about collagen, tendon healing that they can share. I am scientist and I believe in evidence based research, however it is tricky to navigate the science and the literature all alone particularly when you are the one that is injured or that has the illness and are seeking the information because it is a complex web of inter-relationships, nothing exists in isolation!
I welcome further discussion!
Many thanks
Yours in Health
Dear Claudia Gasparini ,
Thank you for your great question: "On what premise and evidence do you make this comment that autophagy triggered as a result of fasting, ie. zero nutrient intake, can greatly quicken up the healing process?"
I have this firm idea first from my personal experience, and then from literature survey.
Before I explain my idea, you may read the following two articles:
Article Sickness-Associated Anorexia: Mother Nature’s Idea of Immunonutrition?
Article Autophagy-A free meal in sickness-associated anorexia
Your are right that to a punctured bicycle tire, it needs an external rubber patch to repair. But our body is different.
Our human body is a complex open system made up of trillions of cells, and each of these trillions of cells is a distinctive open system with their own structure and function, and has its own powerful self-organization (self-healing) capacity. During millions of years of evolution, our body has developed sophisticated stress response strategies, and autophagy is one of these strategies.
Autophagy has multiple physiological functions including cellular quality control, energetic balance maintenance, and pathogen cleaning. In emergency like sickness or injury, the nutrients from food is too slow and inefficient, so our body will automatically up-regulate this evolutionary conserved mechanism of autophagy to remove altered or dysfunctional proteins, organelles and pathogens, and recycle and reuse the nutrients, which is a much efficient and quick source of nutrients and energy supply for healing. In order to maintain the proper functioning of autophagy, serum starvation is preferred. So normally, our body will enter a specific condition, sickness-induced anorexia, when we are sick or have sever injury. And this condition will remain until we have recovered from the illness or injury.
The following paper states that anorexia will be triggered in sever injury:
Article Cytokine mediators of malnutrition: clinical implications. T...
The first person who explicitly described the healing effect of illness-induced anorexia was Luigi Cornaro (1464-1566), and he use this phenomena to defend his anorexic diet. He wrote in his book: "When men are taken ill they discontinue, or nearly so, their food. Now, if by reducing themselves to a small quantity, they recover from the jaws of death, how can they doubt, but that, with a slight increase of diet consistent with reason, they will be able to support nature, when in health. Let a fair, honest trial of some few weeks be given, and the result would, in all cases, be most pleasing."
http://alternativehealthcommunity.com/luigi-cornaro-art-of-living-long/
And actually, Luigi Cornaro was the first recorded case of anorexia nervosa, who successfully turned this dreadful illness (anorexia nervosa) into a sustainable lifestyle of "Eat_but_Little" that gave him a long, healthy and happy life. And we have hypothesized that the cause of anorexia nervosa, or the success of Luigi Cornaro is the sustained upregulated autophagy (SUA):
Article Sustained upregulated autophagy (SUA) without anorexia-Aetio...
There are two things:
a) Collagen can get into the bloodstream and hence help to heal injuries. According to research, this pathway is possible. Nevertheless, the second option is much more important and interesting.
b) Collagen helps to heal the internal wall of guys, stop inflammation and possible leaking there. This in turn substantially decrease the inflammation in the body, allows the immune system to get properly educated in the intestine, save the body resources to heal the injury.
Additionally, healed the small & large intestines enable the development of the right microbiome, this microbiome is the factory for most of our vitamins, provides biologically available trace minerals, and any other fundamental building block that we lost the capacity to produce ourselves.
The best way to achieve all the above mentioned is to make a really long bone broth from meat with bones. It must be made on a slow fire for many hours. Bones must get as weak as possible. In this way, the broth contains a lot of components that can be used to heal intestine, inflammation, and injuries.
On the top, I recommend applying a highly anti-inflammatory diet. This helps the body to decrease the overall inflammation, recruit more body resources to rebuild damaged structures, and do not get confused by omnipresent inflammation.
Thank you very much to everyone, for your participation in this discussion, I really enjoy reading your replies and this is food for thought, I need some time to read properly in more depth and digest the information before I can add to this discussion.
I turn to the following Resources to understand tendon healing and biomechanics.
I find that what these people talk about is very useful and helpful to me to understand what might be happening and to know how to move forward. I feel very worried at the beginning when I learn about my tendon tear and I probably over amplify the way I think about the injury and overall it is only minor, however I get very interested in learning about the science of it and realize that this type of injury can be very debilitating for people and depressing when you don’t know what to do. Science and knowledge is the strength and power to carry on.
RESOURCES
Dr Alison Grimaldi
http://physioedge.com.au/pe-011-hamstring-tendinopathy-with-dr-alison-grimaldi/
Prof Jill Cook, La Trobe University
Podcast: https://bit.ly/2NnY3v5
Tendinitis, Tendinosis, Tendinopathy? Exercise is the best medicine for tendon pain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKkSp-TlofI
An interview with Prof. Jill Cook on Tendinopathy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oahujUyH0
Achilles vs patellar tendinopathy: rehabilitation challenges?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9DqAcikVLo
Ebonie Rio, La Trobe University
Tendon neuroplastic training: changing the way we think about tendon rehabilitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g7-jqo7d9c
Craig Purdam, La Trobe University
What about hamstring tendinopathy?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkOCoYq9iQQ&t=97s
Dr Peter Malliaras
Podcast: https://www.tendinopathyrehab.com/blog/podcasts/isometrics-in-tendinopathy
Thank you Jiri Kroc, I have been reading about the benefits of bone broths and I started to make chicken broth, however I can only cook it on the stove for 4 hours due to practical reasons, some of the recipes indicate cooking for extended periods of time such as 8-12 hours and even longer than that in some recipes to extract all the collagen from the bones and make the broth nice and gelatinous. I do not think that bone broth is a rich enough source of collagen to stimulate the body to produce new collagen so that is why I start to think of collagen supplements and also because I read articles saying that collagen supplementation can help with tendon injuries as can be found in the first post by Vladimir Dusevich.
Tendons, ligaments, cartilage and even bone are composed of collagen. I am interested to understand how the body maintains the collagen in these structures and renews and remodels over time. Many thanks!
Agree with Dr Jiří Kroc that small amount of a well-cooked bone broth may help in repairing the gastrointestinal tract wall, stop the possible leaking there, so as to stop the inflammation in the body.
The gastrointestinal tract is the centre of our body's immune system. As long as we protect the gastrointestinal tract in well-functioning condition, our body can regulate and protect itself, and we can stay worry-free for any medical conditions inside our body.
Each cell in our body is a complex system with its own adaptation strategies, and the trillions of cells in our body form a super-complex system. The reactions of our body to outside input (like food intake) are nonlinear in such a way that it is impossible to set up an input-output causal link. Moreover, aggressive nutritional support may actually slows down the healing, as it disturbs the proper functioning of autophagy.
Dear Dr. Gasparini, collagen is less about getting stuff in the body than about healing gut cell lining. It is where most of the inflammation within the body starts.
Dear Dr. Ligen Lu,
Absolutely agree with you! Your answer is very precise. The gut health: its lining & gut bacteria lining in it is the key to our true health. We are still underestimating gut health influence on our overall health. Up to a recent time, we thought that large intestine is just a waste collector. Now we know that it is the factory of our health, well being, and longevity.
The right gut microbiome composition is the factory producing many fundamental building blocks in our body. There is no way around it. Supplements are too harsh to our bodies and usually, their bioavailability is very low. Bacteria know what to deliver and how to deliver it. The packing is bio-friendly.
Fundamental is the fiber in our diet, as it feeds good bacteria living within our intestines. They love it, they eat it, they convert it into for us very beneficial substances.
To heal injuries is fundamental to decrease the level of inflammation in the whole body. It means healing all infections and not eating pro-inflammatory food: refined & artificial sugars, trans fats, white flour & rice, dairy products, and all food additives & preservatives.
In this way, we can keep inflammation low, this will help the body to find the injured region and focuses on its reparation only.
What I write here is tested on myself. As a person taking daily immunosuppressive drugs, I exactly know what unwanted inflammation is and how difficult it is to keep it in check and low. Nevertheless, it can be accomplished as described above.
Dear Dr Jiří Kroc , fully agree with you on the health benefit of our gut microbiome, and the importance of elimination of inflammation to healing.
I also suspect that our body responds to illness and injury in a quite different way if we compare with its responses when we are in good health. Nutritional support is essencial while we are in good health, yet it might not be beneficial in our body's fighting illness and injury.
Dear Dr Jiří Kroc , thank you for your question.
All of us wish that we are always healthy. Yet unfortunately, we may all occasionally fall in sickness, such as catching infectious diseases.
During infection, our body need to activate the immune system to fight the pathogens, which imposes large demands on metabolic parameters like nutrition and energy. Therefore, our common understanding will be, we should have aggressive nutrition intake to support our body. Yet, such understanding is actually wrong, and our body will just do the opposite.
The most significant sickness behavior of our body during an infection is a reduction in appetite (infection-induced anorexia). This infection-induced anorexia is our body's defense strategy:
Article Infection-Induced Anorexia: Active Host Defence Strategy
Article Cytokine mediators of malnutrition: clinical implications. T...
During infection a series of metabolic events are activated that leads to a state of negative nitrogen balance and significant loss of lean body mass due to protein breakdown, and liver anabolism. In this way, our body supply itself plenty of nutrition and energy to fight infection and enhance healing, and we are actually not in any forms of starvation at all:
Article Sickness-Associated Anorexia: Mother Nature’s Idea of Immunonutrition?
Article Autophagy-A free meal in sickness-associated anorexia
Article Roles of Autophagy in Elimination of Intracellular Bacterial Pathogens
So in sickness, we should follow our body’s natural reaction, and only eat very little to support our gastrointestinal tract, but keep a serum fasting to ensure the proper functioning of autophagy in fighting the pathogens and recover from the infection.
Thank you for the interesting responses, and I like the turn that the conversation is taking towards the role of the microbiome in nutrition and the role of the microbiome on the development of our body's immune system.
Who would have thought that intestinal bacteria, live organisms that live inside our intestines, play such an important role in the biochemistry of digestion, absorption of food and composition of our faecal matter and even immune function and other numerous effects have been linked to this microbial menagerie. Apparently, somewhere between 300 and 1000 different species live in the gut, with most estimates at about 500. A microbial world lives inside of us!
I started taking a broad spectrum probiotic by ‘Life Space’, I was told this is a good brand that specializes in manufacturing probiotics, this probiotic contains 15 strains of bacteria and 32 billion bacteria per capsule. I find that taking the probiotic has helped with bowel movements and intestinal health. I was initially taking 1 capsule per day and then changed to taking 1 capsule every second day as some of the side effects include flatulence.
I think autophagy is a very interesting process and I am keen to experiment. Is there a way of telling whether your body is undergoing autophagy?
Gut health influence the whole body in good or bad was substantial. It is known that all so-called 'civilization diseases' can be mitigated or completely healed by a proper diet.
What does it mean a proper diet?
- No refined & artificial sugars, trans fats, dairy products containing lactose, wheat flour & rice, low carbs, no additives, colors, and other chemicals.
- Yes to probiotic foods: raw sauerkrout, acidophilus Bifidus milk, fermented cheese, Kombucha, Kimchi, fermented veggies as such, ...
- Fiber is critical in our diet. Gut health is boosted by feeding bacteria by fiber, which is their main food. They gave us vitamins, minerals, and many other fundamental nutrients. Fiber is not only filling with our guts!
- For example, gut bacteria produce above 70% of the precursor of serotonin. Normalization of gut health heals about 70-80% of clinical depressions and anxieties. It can be similar to many other diseases interfering with brain functioning.
- When is our diet cleverly designed? When we eat a diet of our grand, grandmothers from nineteen century at the region where we live.
- It can be as simple as this! :-)
- One warning. People with compromised immunity and those on immunosuppressive drugs must consult all probiotic, living food consumption, with their MD. It can be quite dangerous if this food interferes with the therapy.
What is written here is based partially on my personal experience with the influence of gut health on immunity and overall condition of our bodies. I am taking immunosuppressive drugs long term.
We all have much greater power above our personal health than we imagine :-)
Have good health :-)
Low level basal autophagy occurs to maintain the homeostasis of our body in normal physiological conditions. Autophagy will be upregulated naturally when stresses like starvation, infection/inflammation and injury are imposed on our body.
The benefit of knowing this powerful rescue mechanism of our body is more on mental, as we can tell ourselves we only need a calm and peaceful mind and rest mentally and physically when we fall in sickness, our body can take care of itself. We can only follow the occurrence of autophagy naturally, and should not try to manipulate it. As too much of unnecessary autophagy triggered by chronic low grade infection/inflammation is the main source of nutrition leads to morbid obesity.
Thank you Ligen Liu for the insightful answer.
I find it comforting to know what is going on intracellularly at the molecular level it gives me peace of mind.
Curiosity is also a behavior that we possess and that leads us to ask many questions and wonder…about what we do not know.
If we were not curious then how would mankind or womankind make any strides forward in civilization and culture?
I agree with you better to follow the occurrence of autophagy naturally, and should not try to manipulate it.
However, as curious scientists we cannot stop at following something naturally we want to know more about it how we can manipulate and modulate in test conditions.
That is the beauty of science is that it provides us with a framework, a construct in which we are free to ask the questions and explore the variables in a regulated environment.
I thought I would describe in a bit more detail the nature of my tendon injury that I referred to early on in the discussion so as to give a bit more context and hopefully provide information that may be useful to others experiencing similar injuries.
How did my injury occur? I am not entirely sure. I keep racking my brain to remember where I was and what I was doing and the only thing that comes to mind is that I was walking home one morning after having gone to get a coffee and I thought I will sprint home.
I started to run and then something didn’t feel right, I’m not really sure what or how to describe it but I felt like I couldn’t run to the end of the street and I had to stop and walk home. I didn’t think anything of it, I just thought I am not fit, I am not warmed up, I probably have tight muscles.
In the subsequent weeks I had pain in the left thigh that felt like muscular pain, similar to when you exercise and get sore muscles, only that weeks passed and the pain didn’t go away and so I became suspicious that perhaps there was something more to it and lo and behold I go to see my GP and she orders an ultrasound and the report indicates a partial thickness defect in the deep fibers of the quadriceps tendon measured over 1.5cm in width, approximately 8cm above the insertion of the quadriceps tendon from the patella. Associated hyperemia is seen. A complex suprapatellar effusion is also noted.
This first ultrasound was done on the 11th of April 2019 and was maybe between 4-8 weeks after the injury. I followed my GPs advice and went to see a physiotherapist and this was a good move, the physio is much more knowledgeable in musculoskeletal injuries and adept at communicating and made me feel more at ease and that it was not the end of the world. I am grateful for meeting Chris.
On the road to recovery I began muscle strengthening exercises and approximately 3 months after the first ultrasound, I was curious to know what was going on with my tissue so I went back for a second ultrasound on the First of July 2019, 80 days after the first ultrasound, almost 3 months, to check the progress of my injury to know if it was improving or worsening. Thankfully the report came back saying that there is a partial thickness tear of the quadriceps mechanism at the musculotendinous junction which has decreased in size from the prior examination and that there is no new injury or fluid. In my case ultrasound was useful in showing that there was a reason for the pain I was experiencing.
Musculotendinous junction
The myotendinous junction (MTJ) is a complex specialized region located at the muscle-tendon interface that represents the primary site of force transmission.
Overall, I have normal range of motion, I am not debilitated in any way, I do not have any change in movement, however I am aware of my left quad tendon now and that it feels different and has changed. I would also like to mention that tendons heal slowly from what I have been reading in the literature and that healing doesn’t just stop it keeps on going. The various phases of healing have been documented scientifically and consist of inflammation in the early stages, followed by repair and tissue remodeling and this is another area that I have been reading about and that prompted me to look at tendon dynamics and nutritional intervention. In addition to the basic muscle strengthening exercises and walking that I do I have started using a skipping rope.
As Dr Jill Cook articulates exercise and provoking the tendon with load is the best intervention.
Loads in different parts of the tendon
Energy storage acts like a spring
Compressive load – tendons compressed against the bone
Friction load between tendon and surrounding tissue peritendon
The exercises I have been doing have mainly been strengthening the muscle and not really loading the tendon so this is where consulting with a physio is of benefit because they can help with exercise programs and recovery.
This recent article may help you find answers to your Q:
HOW DO COLLAGEN SUPPLEMENTS WORK? WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS
https://www.bulletproof.com/supplements/macronutrients/do-collagen-supplements-work/
Dear Claudia,
I read this interesting discussion that you started. I would like to know if now, after many months from your injury, your tear is recovering and what you think was the most effective therapy. I have a small tear in my elbow and I tried almost everything, from PRP injections, to collagen supplements, physiotherapy, controlled workout, and I have an healthy life-style, including nutrition-wise. However, I am still at square 1. Perhaps your personal experience could give some more insight and a potential new path to healing. Thanks.
Dear Stefano
Thank you for adding to this discussion.
What I write here is based on my own personal experiences, is my own views, and are not to be taken as medical advice. I encourage anyone who suspects a soft tissue injury to talk to a health professional.
In answering your question, “is my tear recovering and what do I think was the most effective therapy?”
I would answer yes, I feel my tendon injury has recovered, it has been now probably 12 months post-injury, I have no pain and full range of motion and functionality of both my left and right leg, however I do feel internally that the left quad is not the same as before and I know it never will be and that is something you have to come to peace with.
I approached my healing journey with diet and exercise. Two things you need to do every single day without thinking, appetite makes you eat and exercise makes you move which your body does without thinking first thing when you wake up in the morning and get out of bed, you are moving. I think there are things you can proactively do to strengthen and heal your body.
The human body is very complex and interrelated and so is this topic. I think it is important to take a close look at the human anatomy of the affected area in your case the elbow and consider the whole arm movement and functioning as a unit.
I started by doing simple floor exercises to strengthen the thigh muscles. In the beginning, I was scared and worried and that is part of the driving force to educate oneself.
Diet wise I start the morning by eating 2 eggs for breakfast, I eat eggs for the protein and I also drink 2-3 freshly squeezed oranges, this is for the vitamin C, you can take vitamin C in supplements but it is much better for the body to absorb it from natural sources. Vitamin C plays a very important role in many biochemical reactions in the body as you will find in the literature and is particularly important for the immune system in fighting off infection and is needed for synthesizing new collagen.
My question originates from the biochemistry of tendons, tendons are composed of collagen, a protein that can be obtained in a supplement, however the relationship between ingestion of collagen and synthesis of collagen is not yet clear.
“As is evident from the steps of collagen synthesis, Vitamin C forms an important component of the process. Vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, a serious and painful disease in which the collagen that is synthesized is defective and it does not produce strong connective tissues. This leads to bleeding and peeling gums, loss of teeth, skin discoloration and non-healing wounds.”
Can I ask you when you mention you try collagen supplements, what is the origin of the collagen in the supplements? Grass fed bovine collagen powder, marine source? How do you take the collagen? What quantity daily? And for how long did you try it?
At Uni our lecturer always emphasized structure function relationships, meaning look at the structure of the tissue and then the function.
“Collagen microscopically occurs in elongated fibrils. It is mostly found in fibrous tissues such as tendon, ligament and skin, and is also abundant in cornea, bone, blood vessels, cartilage, intervertebral disc and the digestive tract.”
As you can tell from reading this definition of collagen is that it is a predominant protein and abundant in the human body.
“What is the primary structure of collagen?
The primary structure of collagen is the Triple Helix. This type of collagen is a long rope-like structure. This is created with three polypeptide chains that are almost braided together. Every third amino acid is a glycine, which fits perfectly into the helix.
Collagen contains specific amino acids – Glycine, Proline, Hydroxyproline and Arginine. These amino acids have a regular arrangement in each of the three chains of these collagen subunits. The sequence often follows the pattern Gly-Pro-X or Gly-X-Hyp, where X may be any of various other amino acid residues. Proline or hydroxyproline constitute about 1/6 of the total sequence.”
Some people talk about taking specific amino acid supplements for example proline. I have not read all the literature and I never will. There are interesting questions that come to mind.
Extract taken from website
http://atpplusct.com/tendons-heal/
Can you maximize tendon healing?
- As discussed above, there are some important factors that play a role in tendon healing. Water content, leucine-rich proteoglycans, ascorbate, and collagen deposition are all necessary for proper healing. So, logically it make’s sense that if one injures a tendon, they should:
1. Multiple studies have shown increased collagen deposition and number of crosslinks, as well as improved functionality of tendons with all 3 of these supplements.
1. Including exercise and instrument-assisted soft-tissue mobilization (such as Graston).
There are many articles and resources written on the topic and is impossible to talk about all, I find the work by Dr Jill Cook useful, there may be other good work, if you are aware of please share it here.
I was also taking a magnesium supplement by the brand Bioceuticals, 1 scoop daily or every 2nd day, I did this in the beginning. I also started taking a broad spectrum probiotic by the brand LifeSpace and I found this probiotic has consolidated my bowel movements and I feel my intestinal health is better. I also drink 1 to 2 coffees daily. Caffeine is known to increase longevity among many things it has been associated with.
I recently start going to the gym and do weight bearing exercise to strengthen the quads. I feel good and strong.
Tendons have no blood supply so everything you read will say that this is the reason they heal much slower than a muscle tear, however joints have synovial fluid, fluid that acts like oil in an engine and physical activity encourages circulation of the fluid which in turn is thought to promote the diffusion of oxygen and nutrients into the tendinous tissue and have a positive effect.
I hope this helps. I am writing a blog on this topic. I encourage you to write about your own experiences too, so that others in a similar situation may benefit and it can be cathartic for yourself. There is value in people’s experiences that you cannot find from reading a textbook or research paper, it can give others hope, relief, assurance, ideas.
Thanks, Claudia
Good picture of tendon anatomy: https://www.britannica.com/science/tendon
Dear Michael Don Davis , could you name a comparative study of effects of collagen supplements and food containing proteins (meat, legumes), preferabbly with radio-labelled peptides? Spitting on your opponents does not prove anything. And yes, most replies on any question in RG are dumb. It's RG.
Dear Claudia,
Thank you for your exhaustive answer. I would like to add something interesting, more than that, something so important. Modern medicine is revealing the importance of fascia.
It is not only about nurturing collagen. It is about function. Fascia is an intracellular matrix, extracellular matrix, fibrous membranes encapsulating muscle bundles, and muscle groups, tendons, and ligaments.
Fascia holds bodies together. It is what remains when we get out of all cells and bones from the body. It is a very powerful super-structure.
Any injury of fascia is gradually projected into the surrounding tissue and later whole body regions.
There are two important videos explaining the basics and the very core of fascia function.
I am sharing with you one important healing technique: grounding. It gives body free electrons that are used in biochemical processes that heal injuries.
Enjoy & use & get well soon :-)
* Watch "Fascia & The Mystery of Chronic Pain | Dana Sterling | LIFE TALK" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/v54l3wDTJHg
* Watch "The Role of Fascia in Movement and Function" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/raCBeQ-gXfs
* Watch "The Earthing Movie: The Remarkable Science of Grounding (full documentary)" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/44ddtR0XDVU
Dear Jiri
Thank you very much for adding further to this conversation. I agree very much with you that it is not only about nurturing collagen but also understanding its function.
I really like the phrase “nurturing collagen” because I believe that, that is what we need to do long-term as our bodies inevitably age, is adopt the mind frame that we need to nurture our collagen and that requires an understanding of its structure and function.
So far so good with my healing journey, I drink my daily glass of orange juice for vitamin C and have 2 eggs for breakfast every day, 1 probiotic capsule at night before bed. This year at the end of January I joined the gym, in hindsight I should have joined sooner, now that the gym has reopened I try and go every second day and do weight bearing exercise to load the tendon and strengthen all the muscles in the kinetic chain, as discussed in the video recommended by Jiri, it is important to look above and below the site of injury. I mainly focus on exercises to strengthen the legs such as leg press, quad extensions, hamstrings, and a bit of weights for the upper body for maintaining an overall healthy skeleton. Think holistically.
As noted by Jiri the fascia is an underappreciated structure in the musculoskeletal system and for those that are not familiar with the use of the term ‘fascia’ the videos provide a really good description. In Italian, which is my mother tongue, I’ve always used the word fascia to refer to wearing a head band which I would do when attending ballet lessons to keep my hair off my face. The word fascia translates in English to mean a band, something that can be used to wrap or to bind, in Italian there is also the word ‘fascetta’ or little bandage that you might use to cover and protect a wound for example. It is a similar concept anatomically, the fascia is a distinctive tissue that is not ligament, is not tendon, is not muscle and is not bone, but is called fascia.
The video suggested by Jili explains the fascia in the context of human anatomy
* Watch "The Role of Fascia in Movement and Function" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/raCBeQ-gXfs
Thank you again Jiri for contributing additional layers of knowledge that helps to illuminate the complex anatomy of the human body in health and disease. I would also like to throw in the words ‘adaptability’ and ‘physical resilience’ which our bodies are remarkably capable of and I invite readers to add comments, thoughts to the discussion.
Health is an ongoing continuum that we need to keep working at every day to maintain a state of well-being and prevent injury. The age old expression “use it or lose it” hits the nail on the head both physically ‘use those muscles or they will atrophy’ and mentally ‘maintain cognitive function, and offset age-related declines in mental performance, by engaging in intellectual exercise and similarly to speaking another language, if you do not practice you’ll lose the connections’.
What are you doing to stay healthy?
Many thanks.
Claudia
Dear Claudia,
To your beautiful answer from today later. Thank you for your beautiful description. I am going to revisit the description of your injury, its medical assessment, and physiotherapy.
The true cause of your injury might be associated with fascia imbalance, which focussed stress of given muscle-tendon junction to levels leading to injury. The second possibility can be dynamically created stress waves that focussed stress into one localized region.
Not many people are aware of the fact that muscles, fascia, and other structures in the body are acting as visco-elastic structures.
Viscoelasticity is called Non-newtonian elasticity as there is present nonlinear dependence of stress on the strain. Very basically said in slow deformation speeds viscoelastic material acts as normal elastic one, whereas at high speeds becomes solid and does not deform at al.
Corn starch solution with the water in the right ratio, when inserted into a pool, can be used to walk on the surface of the liquid. The trick is always to move and produce enough shear stress, which causes the mixture to operate in its 'solidified' region.
Once people stip to move they slowly sink into the liquid.
How does it operate? The cornstarch liquid is made of strings of starch. They are mutually entangled. In slow deformation speeds, they got enough time to slide one on the top of each other. In higher deformation speeds they got a stack and do bot slide at all. They got frozen. Solidify.
Our bodies are at certain deformation regimes working is similar ways. That is why some training techniques can lead to wear and tear of muscles, ligaments, and tendons, along with fascia.
By the way, there already exist liquid bulletproof vests based on this principle.
Videos explaining a lot about the character of your injury. For some reason, viscoelasticity created focal, stiff points in your muscle-tendon junction.
Watch "These People Are Walking On Water" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/q-DZ0f0_NCA
Watch "What Kind of Liquid Lets You Run Across Its Surface? | Street Science" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/JJfppydyGHw
Watch "Liquid body armor proves to be bulletproof" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/L5Ts9lYZIDk
Watch "Tom Myers on How Fascia is like Non-Newtonian Fluid" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/-HK-Ra-YEqMG
The last is the best! Tom Myers is the leading researcher in the field of the fascia.
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