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MONDAY, July 10 (HealthScout) -- When you can't breathe, you've got big problems. And according to new research, if the cells that make the cartilage in your joints can't "breathe," you may develop the crippling disease osteoarthritis.
In the first study of its kind, a report in the July issue of Arthritis and Rheumatism suggests that defects in how cartilage cells process oxygen to make energy may be the cause of osteoarthritis, which affects roughly 21 million Americans.
Until now, researchers have understood very little about what causes the loss of healthy cartilage, which normally forms a protective rubbery tissue between joints. When the cartilage is lost, calcium deposits form and the joints themselves break down.
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"People have thought about osteoarthritis being just wear and tear," says senior author Dr. Robert Terkeltaub, the chief of rheumatology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego. "We looked at this like another degenerative disease," he says, such as Alzheimer's.
Now, he believes he knows what's happening to the cartilage. His research team found that when tiny structures inside cartilage cells called mitochondria don't get enough oxygen, they can't produce enough energy to power the cell.
"There's a power failure in the cells of cartilage," says Terkeltaub.
Moreover, the team found that nitric oxide, a harmful gas found in the body, can interfere with the consumption of oxygen in mitochondria.
Over time, patients with this degenerative disease suffer increasing pain, stiffness and inflammation of their joints. There is no known cure, and the conventional therapies -- painkillers, anti-inflammatories, heat therapy and exercise -- can treat only the symptoms, not the cause.
Can drugs fight cause?
Terkeltaub says these findings call for research into new drugs that fight the cause, not just symptoms of osteoarthritis. "What we're looking at here is the potential for a whole new generation of therapies that's targeted to the mitochondria," he says. "This promises to provide us with some really good targets."
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