The Surprising Link to Osteoarthritis (and How You Can Benefit)

Many natural health experts tout the adage, “great health begins in the gut” and, conversely, bad health also begins in the gut, particularly when people eat poorly and have a less-than-healthy lifestyle. And, according to recent research, there are still more illnesses to add to the growing list of health conditions linked to the gut.

Osteoarthritis has long been considered a joint wear-and-tear disease, but ground-breaking research links it to bacteria found in our microbiome. A person’s microbiome is the sum of all the bacteria in her or his body. In other words, the secret to healthy joints (at least in part) lies in our gut. According to the research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), poor gut health can lead to systemic inflammation which can lead to obesity and an increased risk of joint damage.

Why would being obese or overweight affect your risk of osteoarthritis? Increasing your body weight significantly applies increased pressure to your joints.

A growing body of studies, including one published in the journal Beneficial Microbes, now shows that the health of our microbiome influences our body weight in multiple ways, primarily including:

1. Providing us with the energy we need through the breakdown of starches and natural sugars in our diet. Beneficial bacteria assist with digesting the carbohydrates and absorbing the energy we need for all our biochemical processes.
   

2. Affecting cellular energy of liver and muscle cells. If the liver and muscles do not receive the energy they need to perform optimally, they don’t function adequately and cannot break down fat stores and build up healthy, strong muscles that also break down fat.
   

3. Affecting the accumulation of fat in our tissues.