Q: Knee pain now hampers my ability to run. I have exercised vigorously in the past and I believe a lack of exercise would affect my health and life span. Can food supplements help?
A: Perhaps the jogger’s motto of “no pain, no gain” should be replaced with “honor your body signals.” Pain means tissue damage, and you should not sacrifice one body part for the health of another. You can have a healthy heart and healthy knee joints.
One option is to “race-walk” rather than run. Your feet don’t leave the ground, so there is less jarring to the knee joint, yet the exercise is about as vigorous. Or choose water aerobics, although the advantage to bone health of weight-bearing exercise is lost. Workouts with weights will also burn calories and keep bones strong. Research indicates that for an exercise you can do all your life you can’t beat walking for 45-50 minutes several times a week.
The currently fashionable food supplement for joint health is glucosamine, and it certainly has helped many people regain or maintain the ability to exercise adequately. Often it is combined with chondroitin, an anti-inflammatory nutrient, and sometimes MSM (a source of usable sulfate), which may transport these nutrients into collagen tissue since collagen doesn’t have a blood supply. No need to be stingy with the amount of glucosamine, because there is no harm and much potential good in taking 1500 to 3000 milligrams (mg) per day or more.
The classic nutrient for joint repair is vitamin C, and you can take 2000-6000 mg/day as long as no diarrhea develops. Bear in mind that vitamin C is one of a family of antioxidants that work best as a team, so include a source of vitamin E, selenium, bioflavonoids, beta carotene, and as many other antioxidants as you can manage. Several minerals are involved in joint health. Zinc is needed in amounts of 30-50 mg/day, manganese is safe at 10 mg/day , and boron at 6 mg/day could be useful.
You will need both your heart and your knees for a long and healthy life, and there is no reason why you can’t arrange a lifestyle that keeps both healthy.
Q: I’m over 50 years old and already beginning to feel droopy. Is this inevitable? Will improving my nutrition improve my energy and stamina?
A: It’s never too late to try some of the safe and often effective nutrients that may improve the way you feel. At the top of the list are some changes that are simple to suggest but hard to put into practice:
° Eliminate or dramatically reduce caffeine intake. We think we are getting an energy boost from coffee, cola, or tea, but this energy is like borrowing money from a loan shark. Any boost we get we pay back later, and with high interest.
° Reduce refined sugar intake. With average sugar consumption accounting for 10% of our calories, there is much room for improvement.
° Emphasize vegetables over other foods. There is a lot of variation among individuals as to how much protein, fat, carbohydrate, and fiber is best, but it is hard to go wrong by eating vegetables.
° Take a good multivitamin/mineral, and be sure it provides generous amounts of several antioxidants. A clinical nutritionist can tell you if you are one of the rare folks over 50 who still need an iron supplement, and can probably also advise you about other options among the multivitamin/minerals available.
° Take extra vitamin C. Few multivitamin formulas provide enough vitamin C for our stressful era, and few vitamins give you more for your money than vitamin C.
There is no reason for you not to live another 50 years or so in vibrant good health if you will to care of yourself.
This article appears in May 4 • 2001.