The Surprising Nutrient That Stops Knee Pain

Second Opinion Volume 12, Issue 103 | August 28, 2015

Are your knees becoming a problem? Do they hurt when you go up or down stairs or inclines? Has your doctor told you it’s because of osteoarthritis? A new study offers two simple ways you can improve your situation.

Researchers looked at 256 men and women with an average age of 56 years. Some were overweight and some were not. They analyzed the group for the amount of knee pain they were having. They also examined them to see how well their knees were functioning. And finally, they measured their vitamin D levels. Here’s what they found.

The results showed that the more overweight they were, the lower their vitamin D levels were and the more pain they had. Furthermore, when they compared the vitamin D levels with the amount of pain they were having, the researchers found that the men and women with healthy levels “reported significantly less knee osteoarthritis pain compared to participants with deficient or insufficient levels, regardless of obesity status.” And that’s not all.

They also discovered that when it came to functional performance, such as going up and down stairs, the same thing happened. No matter what their weight was, the people with healthy levels of vitamin D “demonstrated better performance than those obese participants with deficient or insufficient vitamin D levels.” So why is this?

The authors admitted that they don’t know how vitamin D affects pain. They even suggested that both low vitamin D levels and obesity may be a result of painful knees instead of the cause. In their words, “Higher levels of pain may lead to reduced outdoor activity, which may contribute to both obesity and decreased vitamin D.” So which came first, the pain and inactivity or the vitamin D levels? The answer is we don’t know. And both may be the cause.

In the past, I reported to you a study in which some patients with severe back pain had a remarkable decrease in their pain when they took vitamin D supplements. Some of these patients even had a history of failed back surgery. The results of that study were so incredible that I routinely put all of my back pain patients on vitamin D. How it relieves their pain, I don’t know. All I know is that sometimes it works. So here’s my advice.

If you are suffering from painful, osteoarthritic knees do the following:

1. First, get rid of the pain. There are two safe and healthy ways you can do that. One is to get some Prolozone treatments. I have written extensively about Prolozone therapy. It uses the power of oxygen to take pain away and heal damaged cartilage. You can find a doctor trained and accredited in Prolozone therapy at www.aaot.us.
2. The second way to decrease your pain is to start taking two to three capsules of Advanced Bionutritionals’ Ultimate Knee Relief. This is a product that focuses on decreasing the pain of osteoarthritic knees. It contains a unique form of boron called calcium fructoborate, which has proven to be amazing for knee pain relief.
3. Third, start a regular exercise program and get in shape. The best exercise for people with bad knees is cycling.
4. Next, lose the weight. The government recently finished reporting on a very expensive study that showed that the more overweight a person is the more osteoarthritis of the knees they have. Common sense would tell you this.
5. Lastly, have your doctor check your vitamin D level. If it’s below 50 ng/ml, start taking enough to get it that high.

Yours for better health,

Frank Shallenberger, MD