4 ms·

I don't understand why there's so much focus on muscles and bones. Every orthopedist I've known says that cartilage repair is the holy grail.

rpmisms 5y ago
Cardiac muscle, organ tissue, and cartilage. Wouldn't make us immortal, but would massively improve quality of life.
xwdv 5y ago
Exactly. Muscles and bones are nothing without good cartilage, and the fact is cartilage wears down over time and doesn’t get repaired, and I think this is one of the key reasons people feel “old”.
- BadCookie 5y ago
  People lose muscle mass as they age as well. That is why the risk of falling (and not being able to get up) is high among the elderly.
  - Teever 5y ago
    One of the major reasons that people lose muscle mass as they age is due to arthritis making it difficult to exercise. If there was a treatment for cartilage wear then elderly people could more easily stave off muscle loss by working out more.
  - xwdv 5y ago
    Yes but this is mostly treatable by simply continuing to exercise and perhaps supplementing with creatine as you get older. There is no real way to prevent cartilage wearing down.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Yeah. Osteoartritis is a condition that has virtually no good treatment.
  - vervez 5y ago
    Bioengineer here able to chime in with niche expertise. Cartilage is and has been a holy grail in biomedical engineering but is very difficult to grow and transplant. There have been some successful neo-cartilage projects but integrating that into a defect and successfully integrating with host cartilage is the problem. The boundary of the defect actually has electronegative components that actively oppose integration of host and transplant (synthetic) cartilage. I think the most likely solution won't be a tissue-engineered transplant but rather an active cellular component that appropriately responds, and builds upon, this negative feedback cycle via cellular programming.
    - xwdv 5y ago
      Could we harvest cartilage from other animals? Such as pigs perhaps.
      - scheme271 5y ago
        I think cadavers are the typical source. Since there's no blood vessels in it, tissue rejection isn't as much of a concern.
      - vervez 5y ago
        That's a strategy but there are issues with immune rejection since that's a xenograft. I think there are some products based off of this concept for other areas (skin grafts) after removing all xeno-cells from the tissue, but articular cartilage is more difficult to remove/replace xeno-cells with autologous or allogenic cells.
  - VirusNewbie 5y ago
    Growth hormone? It's just not without risks.
    - Ovah 5y ago
      Cancer from soft tissues (sarcoma) has a high mortality rate. Even a very low risk of getting it from growth hormones would drastically limit their use. I believe there was a study showing a minute increase in risk of sarcoma in kids getting growth hormone injections. Which is why pediatric endocrilogists are lot more restrictive these days prescribing growth hormones than maybe 7 years ago. At least in my country.

rpmisms 5y ago

Cardiac muscle, organ tissue, and cartilage. Wouldn't make us immortal, but would massively improve quality of life.

xwdv 5y ago

Exactly. Muscles and bones are nothing without good cartilage, and the fact is cartilage wears down over time and doesn’t get repaired, and I think this is one of the key reasons people feel “old”.

BadCookie 5y ago
People lose muscle mass as they age as well. That is why the risk of falling (and not being able to get up) is high among the elderly.
- Teever 5y ago
  One of the major reasons that people lose muscle mass as they age is due to arthritis making it difficult to exercise. If there was a treatment for cartilage wear then elderly people could more easily stave off muscle loss by working out more.
- xwdv 5y ago
  Yes but this is mostly treatable by simply continuing to exercise and perhaps supplementing with creatine as you get older. There is no real way to prevent cartilage wearing down.
ekianjo 5y ago
Yeah. Osteoartritis is a condition that has virtually no good treatment.
- vervez 5y ago
  Bioengineer here able to chime in with niche expertise. Cartilage is and has been a holy grail in biomedical engineering but is very difficult to grow and transplant. There have been some successful neo-cartilage projects but integrating that into a defect and successfully integrating with host cartilage is the problem. The boundary of the defect actually has electronegative components that actively oppose integration of host and transplant (synthetic) cartilage. I think the most likely solution won't be a tissue-engineered transplant but rather an active cellular component that appropriately responds, and builds upon, this negative feedback cycle via cellular programming.
  - xwdv 5y ago
    Could we harvest cartilage from other animals? Such as pigs perhaps.
    - scheme271 5y ago
      I think cadavers are the typical source. Since there's no blood vessels in it, tissue rejection isn't as much of a concern.
    - vervez 5y ago
      That's a strategy but there are issues with immune rejection since that's a xenograft. I think there are some products based off of this concept for other areas (skin grafts) after removing all xeno-cells from the tissue, but articular cartilage is more difficult to remove/replace xeno-cells with autologous or allogenic cells.
- VirusNewbie 5y ago
  Growth hormone? It's just not without risks.
  - Ovah 5y ago
    Cancer from soft tissues (sarcoma) has a high mortality rate. Even a very low risk of getting it from growth hormones would drastically limit their use. I believe there was a study showing a minute increase in risk of sarcoma in kids getting growth hormone injections. Which is why pediatric endocrilogists are lot more restrictive these days prescribing growth hormones than maybe 7 years ago. At least in my country.