Sports Injury

Sports injuries are the leading cause of unintentional injury in children and youth, peaking at 42 percent annually for people aged 15 to 24. Injuries sustained during athletic pursuits account for 23 percent of all traumas, second only to motor vehicle injuries, and are the leading cause of death in children. Among adults, the exact figures for sports-related injuries are not known as they tend to be grouped with all injuries and trauma to the muscles and structures of the joints.

The dilemma that all healthcare professionals face when treating athletes is the obvious fact that pain inhibits movement and movement is required for training; however, most pain relievers inhibit healing and prolong rehabilitation. The keys to successful therapy are relief of pain and inflammation without inhibited healing.

Contributing Factors

Aging causes the connective tissues to lose their flexibility. This is due in part to decreased stability of the cell membranes and collagen fibers. This loss of flexibility contributes towards the risk of injury during exercise and other forms of intense activity. Most sports injuries are caused by either accidents or overuse.

Preventative Factors

The goal of preventing sports injuries focuses on strengthening the supporting structures of the body. Athletic injury and age-related decline is generally associated with connective tissue structures such as the ligaments, tendons, aponeuroses, fascia, bone, blood vessels and other joint structures. Muscle tissue itself is not affected as often as is thought.

The connective tissues lose flexibility with age due to:

• Decreased production of fluid maintaining long-chain glycosaminoglycan structures
• Decreased stability of cell membrane and extracellular collagen fibers
• Decreased production of glycosaminoglycan structures also results in decreased size of muscle groups.

Use of Anti-Catabolic Substances

Nutricol is proposed to increase the structural integrity of connective tissue structures and to maintain optimum tissue hydration. The potential results after using Recovery are:

• Decreased susceptibility to injury
• Decreased tissue breakdown
• Faster recovery rates (shorter recovery times)
• Decreased lactic acid buildup
• Decreased pain and inflammation
• Increased overall training capacity
• Recovery improves muscle tissue health by:

Reinforcing membrane and matrix structures through increasing aldimine reducible cross-linking of collagen fibers. This reinforces the strength and elasticity of connective tissue structures such as fascia, dermis and blood vessel walls (26,27)

Neutralizing reactive oxygen species (ROS) and catabolic enzymes before they can negatively impact cellular and extracellular structure and function. This results in increased membrane receptivity to growth factors such as insulin, somatomedins and thyroxin that are required for anabolic repair and cellular maintenance (4,10,13,28-30,35,49)

Decreasing catabolism of membrane and matrix collagen and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) structures via decreasing the pathological production of catabolic enzymes and other biochemicals such as collagenase, elastase, hyaluronidase, tumor necrosis factor, nitric oxide synthase and xanthine oxidase. These biochemicals are released from immune, microbial and damaged cells and cause further damage to connective and epithelial tissue structures, resulting in joint pain, inflammation, capillary fragility and other soft-tissue damage (4,25,31-35)

Stabilizing cellular membranes, preventing the release of compounds that promote inflammation such as histamine, serine proteases, prostaglandins and leukotrienes by non-competitively inhibiting the release of associated inflammatory enzymes such as cyclo-oxygenase, lipoxygenase and phosphodiesterase (33,36)

Increasing the stability and production of protective epithelial mucosal surfaces in the digestive, respiratory and genitourinary tract to decrease the absorption of antigens (environmental compounds that may initiate immune or non-immune mediated inflammation, spasm and damage within muscle tissue structures). (37-40)

Biostructural Medicine goes beyond simply addressing symptoms; it is a cell structure-oriented health science that addresses the pathogenic factors of degenerative and inflammatory conditions. Nutricol (Recovery) may be safely combined with other medications or taken on its own to help counter inflammation. It does not produce unpleasant side effects.