SOFT TISSUE HEALTH #6: ANTI-OXIDANTS AND ANTI-INFLAMMATORIES
In this particular blog entry I will discuss some nutrient categories that can be very helpful for the overall management of soft tissue health and pathologies, and may be more recognizable "household names" to patients who have been keeping up with the popular literature regarding nutritional supplementation.
Some readers may wonder why we are only getting to discuss them in episode number 6 of the soft tissue health series, assuming they would be brought up much earlier. However the order in which each set of nutrients has been discussed is very intentional and reflects the hierarchy of needs and priorities when it comes to building soft tissues from the ground up. It's not so much that the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds are not important for soft tissue health, but the fact that patients often try to incorporate them without 1st addressing some more basic metabolic nutrients such as oxygen and amino acids, thus putting the proverbial cart before the horses.
Our soft tissues, from muscles to ligaments to tendons, are in a constant state of turnover, the result of adaptation to our environment (both external and internal), and thus subject to episodes of stress, from such things as repetitive injuries, single traumatic injuries, or heavy training with the goal of causing some minor disruption of muscle to increase bulk. The normal repair mechanisms of the human body will best operate in a particular chemical environment with fewer free radicals and within the presence of inflammatory immune molecules that are supposed to be finally regulated to be released for short durations in controlled amounts, but will have a counterproductive effect if present in a chronic state and at higher levels. Unfortunately, most of the modern lifestyle in so-called 1st world countries predisposes people to chronic low-grade inflammation and depleted antioxidant status through the usual culprits: nutritional inadequacies, environmental toxicities, imbalanced stress rest ratio, etc. the problem with this scenario is that our soft tissues are constantly operating in a sort of chemical soup that's unfavorable to the normal repair and adaptation cycle.
Supplementing certain categories of antioxidants and nonpharmacological anti-inflammatory substances can make sense in that context, especially if the patient is experiencing more chronic or intense soft tissue demands. We have a lot of patients with heavy physical demanding jobs, 6 or more days a week for 8 months at a time, with suboptimal availability of rest for example, some patients with very chronic postural stress that is not easily altered with ergonomic modifications, or some athletes on intense training schedules. Under these types of circumstances, even when addressing the 1st 5 building blocks of soft tissue health, they still come come up short unless adding some botanical anti-inflammatory supplements for example.
Anti-inflammatory compounds fall along different categories, but primarily in the botanical family and in the fat-soluble family. Botanicals would include things such as high-grade curcumin extract, boswellia, white willow. Fat-soluble anti-inflammatories would be in the omega-3 family, vitamin A and D family. You could also make a case for categorizing CBD in the fat-soluble compounds.
Anti-inflammatory compounds also come in different families, the so-called "greens and reds" which are high concentrations of greens and berries primarily, bioflavonoids, as well as the glutathione family which is more of a direct red-ox system. The list is long and exhaustive in reality, with a lot of compounds that have both antioxidant/anti-inflammatory activity but also cross over into immune modulation and neurotransmitter/neurohormonal activity. While the basic nutrients outlined in blogs 1 through 5 are more straightforward for patients to self manage, supplementing antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds has a lot more nuances, and may be worth implementing with the support of a healthcare professional for maximum outcomes. It is also important to remember that the supplements will only ultimately be most effective when utilized as an additional strategy on top of a robust foundation of the previously discussed nutrients.
