A breakthrough treatment may revive busted knees and eliminate joint replacement: study

This may be just what some people kneed.Joint issues have never been limited to the elderly, as more young people deal with debilitating knee pain and turn to surgical options for relief.Now, a revolutionary treatment may provide relief for the joint inflammation, pain, stiffness and reduced mobility that often come with arthritis or other knee injuries.Nearly everyone will be affected by wear and tear on the protective layer of cartilage at the ends of our bones, either by developing osteoarthritis as they age or from injuries like ACL tears, where pivoting, jumping and abruptly stopping are frequent.The most common treatment for severe arthritis is to surgically replace the damaged joint, a costly prevention for a condition millions suffer with.Researchers at Stanford Medicine, though, have discovered a breakthrough treatment in older mice that regrows damaged knee cartilage by restoring naturally lost cartilage and prevents osteoarthritis after knee injuries.New, functional joint cartilage was also produced from the treatment — which was discovered by further investigating a protein that we naturally produce as we age.The protein 15-PGDH is described as a gerozyme, or an enzyme that becomes more abundant with age and contributes to the gradual loss of tissue function.Blocking the protein in older mice has been linked to increased muscle mass and endurance, as well as regeneration of bone, nerve and blood cells.These tissues heal by tissue-specific stem cells multiplying and changing into specialized cells.Not cartilage cells, though.Instead of relying on stem cells, they heal by changing their patterns of gene activity.“This is a new way of regenerating adult tissue, and it has significant clinical promise for treating arthritis due to aging or injury,” senior study author Helen Blau said in a press release.The gerozyme inhibitor “causes a dramatic regeneration of cartilage beyond that reported in response to any other drug or intervention,” senior stu...