Joy Kong, MDRegenerative Medicine Physician, Educator, and Entrepreneur

Why You Need to Treat the WHOLE Body

8 Oct 2024 · 1 min

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A short excerpt from a YouTube video by Joy Kong, MD arguing that treating only the injured joint (e.g., injecting a knee) is insufficient for degenerative osteoarthritis, especially in older adults. The speaker contrasts acute knee injuries in young athletes (where local injection may suffice) with chronic, inflammatory osteoarthritic knees (common in people in their 50s–70s+) where systemic factors reduce regenerative potential. The speaker also notes that the outer one-third of knee cartilage receives blood supply while the inner two-thirds rely on synovial fluid, so effective treatment should address both local joint and whole-body factors.

Chapters

They're forgetting about treating the whole body. So if you have a injury, let's say a knee, if we just inject into the knee, this is somebody that has acute knee injury, who's young, an athlete, that's fine. But if this is osteoarthritic knee, which means a degenerative condition and a chronic inflammatory condition usually happens when people reach their 50s, 60s, 70s, and above. And these are inflammatory situations where the regenerative potential of the body has been hampered, so you're not able to regenerate the cartilage. So in that case, if you just target the knee without addressing the whole body, your body is not going to be able to help you to regenerate. Not to mention, the outer one third of the cartilage of the knee is nourished by the blood supply. So only the inner two thirds are nourished by the synovial fluid, where you inject it directly. So you want to attack from both angles.