How Does Bone Get It’s Nutrients?
1. The Flow of Life: Convergent Approaches to Understanding Musculoskeletal Health from Molecular- to Meso-Length Scales
Melissa Louise Knothe Tate1,*
1 Blue Mountains World Interdisciplinary Innovation Institute, Blue Mountains National Park, NSW 2782, Australia
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2025, 30(4), 25231; https://doi.org/10.31083/FBL25231 (registering DOI)
Published: 18 April 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vascular Mechanisms in Skeletal Disease)
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Hi Friends,
This was an interesting article on how bone maintains itself with what is called nutrient washing. So, after reading this you can tell your friends you know why people are wearing weighted vests and why weight bearing exercise increases bone density!
The researchers were able to prove bone gets nutrients passively; that is passive like a flooding of nutrients in water similar to a swamp, the author’s description, and to wringing of a sponge with load bearing exercise pushing nutrient rich fluid through the porous bone matrix.
The research focused on proving a theory from 1977 (Pickarski & Munro), that bone is like a swamp and a sponge from passive fluid saturation to actively forcing fluid through bone via load bearing movement.
It’s fun to have an answer for why load bearing exercise helps maintain bone density – you’re forcing nutrients into all areas of the bone, keeping the cells alive and helping to make new ones. This nutrient saturation also keeps cartilage in joints healthy.
The author begins to describe how degeneration of joints takes place with inflammatory proteins called cytokines building up in injured areas, causing inflammation. According to the author, “the tipping point” arrives when the natural consequences of acute trauma, fatigue, lifestyle (diet and exercise), and age-related tissue degeneration finally overtake the body’s resilience.
So, let’s step into the repair phase of joints, keeping bone healthy, and restoring lost bone density.
Cartilage and bone contain blood flow that brings nutrients and, according to this article, they deposit as fluid reservoirs to feed these dense tissues. Impact injuries; falls, sports, wear and tear can damage bone and cartilage. We would call these bone bruises in an acute setting. When damaged cartilage and bone heal, the blood flow highway is now a trickle of nutrients. A healthy young adult with a high food to cell energy conversion could maintain cartilage and bone health by being very efficient.
But, what about the rest of us who may not meet our nutritional demands? We will not repair as fast as we should, not as efficiently turning food into energy, and presto, we start what is thought to be an inevitable decline.
The effects of physical impact on bone and or past lifestyle does not mean you cannot rebuild. If you increase your cell energy production by becoming more efficient, you can beat back time by rebuilding bone density and cartilage. Healthy efforts can make a difference.
The picture below describes the degenerative process when nutrients are not plentiful and if there is an energy depriving acid load build up in the cells.
Cartilage and bone will regrow if there is enough cell energy.
Email me and I will send you a pdf on the importance of the First morning’s urine pH to measure cell energy.
DrMcGuckin@proton.me
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