Sugar consumption has been linked to many different health issues. Today, what we’ll be looking at is how an overconsumption of all that refined carbohydrate “comfort foods” can actually be detrimental to our joints in not just one way.
We do know that an overconsumption of sugar can be pro-inflammatory. That’s a given. And the inflammatory response can signal the macrophages in our immune system to do 2 things.
Firstly, the macrophages can be induced to produce more matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) enzymes in a pro-inflammatory environment.
That is precisely how the initial repairs to any form of injury in our body commence. We feel the symptoms of pain in a sprained ankle, for instance, which is associated with a strong spike in pro-inflammatory cytokine signallers. This pro-inflammatory signal induces macrophages to swarm the site of injury and produce more MMPs to digest away the dead/injured bits of tissue, which, of course, involves collagen proteins.
What Pain In The Joints Indicates For The Rest Of Our Body.
Osteoarthritis is a common issue that plagues most people who experience chronically painful joints that have lost a fraction of their original functions. We feel it as we age and as our bodies degenerate.
The pro-inflammatory signal is eventually quenched when the digestion is complete. That’s why the pain and swelling only lasts for a definite time period. When the debris clearance is complete, there isn’t any more need for any more biochemical alarms.
However, a chronic overconsumption of sugar can lead to a mildly elevated inflammatory signal, which also does increase MMP activity overall.
These MMPs, unfortunately, do not differentiate between healthy functioning collagen or damaged collagen.
Remember, in an injury, the inflammation signal is localized at the source of the injury, with the macrophages swarming the site of injury. With sugar overconsumption, we’re looking at an increased inflammation signal throughout the body, especially as the macrophages patrol through all our blood vessels.
Hence, the first thing that we can see is that sugar overconsumption is pro-inflammatory and can induce our immune system to destroy healthy collagen at a faster rate.
The next issue, however, is that sugar overconsumption also disrupts the formation of fresh collagen.
The Biochemistry Behind Collagen Synthesis In The Human Body
We do know of collagen as this structural protein in our body. It’s a protein that supports the physical structure of our skin and our joints. We can even find it in our bones. It even seals off the atherosclerotic plaques that are prevalent in heart disease patients.
