Intra-articular injection of a nutritive mixture solution protects articular cartilage from osteoarthritic progression..

This is an interesting article, not yet fully published. Looking into intra-articular injections of dextrose based solutions and their effect on the protection of articular cartilage. I suspect there will be significant interest in this area in the months and years to come, it is very relevant to professional athletes and the question is, will we be using something like this prophylactically to prevent or minimise OA in later life ?
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Intra-articular injection of a nutritive mixture solution protects articular cartilage from osteoarthritic progression induced by anterior cruciate ligament transection in mature rabbits: a randomized controlled trial

Yoo-Sin Park , Si-Woong Lim , Il-Hoon Lee , Tae-Jin Lee , Jong-Sung Kim and Jin Soo Han

Abstract (provisional)

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease which disrupts collagenous matrix of articular cartilage, and is difficult to cure because articular cartilage is a nonvascular tissue. Treatment of OA has targeted macromolecular substitutes for cartilage components, such as hyaluronic acid or genetically engineered materials. However, the goal of this study is to examine whether intra-articular injection of the elementary nutrients restores the matrix of arthritic knee joints of mature animals. A nutritive mixture solution (NMS) was composed of elementary nutrients such as glucose or dextrose, amino acids and ascorbic acid. It was administered five times, at the 6th, 8th, 10th, 13th, and 16th weeks, into the unilateral anterior cruciate ligament transected (ACLT) knee joints of mature New Zealand White rabbits. It was compared to normal saline (NS)-injection effect. OA progression was histopathologically evaluated by hematoxylin & eosin (H&E) staining, by the Mankin grading method, and by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) at the 19th week. NMS-injection decreased progressive erosion of articular cartilage overall compared to NS-injection (p<0.01),>

full preliminary article pdf