What Does Hyaluronic Acid Do For Joints?
The knee joint, as one of the most important joints supporting human activities, is a working ability that can be said to be obvious. But with the passage of time and the aging of the human body, it is inevitable that there will be some problems, such as cartilage degeneration injury, strain, joint synovial fluid insufficiency, and so on. And these symptoms are mostly caused by osteoarthritis, so osteoarthritis is also known as degenerative arthritis.
Why can hyaluronic acid treat pain caused by osteoarthritis? What kind of substance is it? Hyaluronic acid may still be unclear, but beauty lovers must have heard of it, after all, it is recognized as the best moisturizing ingredient, widely used in maintenance and cosmetics.
What is hyaluronic acid?
Hyaluronic acid has a special water retention effect. Its hyaluronic acid molecule can carry more than 500 times water. It is the best moisturizing substance found in nature and is called an ideal natural moisturizing factor.
Its unique molecular structure and physical and chemical properties show many important physiological functions in the human body, such as lubricating joints, regulating the permeability of vascular walls, regulating protein, promoting wound healing, and so on. It should be noted that the main component of synovial fluid secreted by the knee joint itself is sodium hyaluronate.
What does it do in the human body?
The presence of sodium hyaluronate in the synovial fluid can give the synovial fluid a high degree of viscoelasticity and lubrication, reduce the impact of human walking and movement on the bone, and then reduce the friction of bones.
In addition, polyglycolic acid, which is composed of sodium hyaluronate and proteoglycan, is the basic unit of the cartilage matrix. There is a thin amorphous layer on the surface of the cartilage, which is also a complex of sodium hyaluronate and protein. It is only by them that the cartilage can relieve the force on the knee.
There are many reasons for knee pain, one of which is the pain caused by the reduction of synovial fluid in the knee joint. And why does synovial fluid decrease? One is the pain caused by wear and tear of the cartilage on the articular surface of the femur and tibia due to insufficient synovial fluid secreted by the human body as people get older. The other is excessive exercise and heavy physical work so that synovial fluid loss in the joint is too fast, and the human body’s secretion of synovial fluid is in short supply.
When knee pain occurs, sodium hyaluronate is injected into the knee joint to restore the synovial fluid in the pathological condition to the normal state, thereby restoring lubrication and continuing to act as a knee barrier and protection function. Breaking the vicious circle of viscoelasticity reduction barrier and protection reduction cartilage further destruction release of enzymes and inflammatory factors further reduce the viscoelasticity of synovial fluid in the process of osteoarthropathy. It creates a natural repair time for the joints of the lesion so that the injured cartilage can be naturally repaired and healed.
However, this method only for mild and moderate osteoarthritis has good results, for severe and late patients with poor efficacy. The quality of the articular cavity and the degree of cartilage destruction are the main factors that affect the curative effect of osteoarthritis. So, as for the treatment of arthropathy, we have always advocated that we should find out early, treat early, spend less money, and not suffer, and dragging on all the time will only make the disease worse.
Medical grade sodium hyaluronate intra-articular injection, as a supplementary treatment for osteoarthritis, has more than 20 years of history, and the global dosage has exceeded 1 million times. The application has such a wide population, in addition to good results, no obvious side effects are also one of its advantages.
