[Creative Cultivation Program] Can spinach help treat osteoarthritis? It's true, but the method is a bit magical

Have you heard that spinach can treat osteoarthritis? Don’t rush to buy spinach, listen to me first.

This is about a study. Not long ago, a research team from the Run Run Shaw Hospital affiliated to the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University cleverly transplanted the endosperm of spinach into mammalian cells through the method of cell membrane camouflage coating, achieving specific energy supply. The study was also applied in the treatment of degenerative osteoarthritis and verified. The relevant research results were published in the journal Nature.

After hearing about this study, are you ready to buy spinach in large quantities and eat a lot of it to solve your joint problems? Things are not as simple as everyone thinks. Eating spinach alone cannot solve the problem of osteoarthritis .

First of all, we have to talk about the relationship between chondrocytes and osteoarthritis . Chondrocyte necrosis is considered to be directly related to osteoarthritis. There have been many views on why chondrocyte necrosis occurs, such as abnormal biological force, genetic factors, cell aging and apoptosis, local inflammatory factors, free radicals, proteases, etc., which are all considered to be related to osteoarthritis, but no one has thought about energy supply and mitochondria . Because everyone thought that chondrocytes live in an oxygen-deficient environment, there are no blood vessels here, and naturally there is no oxygen. What can mitochondria that perform aerobic respiration have to do with it? However, in recent years, more and more studies have shown that problems with mitochondria in chondrocytes are indeed related to osteoarthritis .

What does mitochondria do? We need to review the biology knowledge we learned in middle school. After the food we eat is digested and absorbed, it enters the blood and is transported to different cells. A large part of the organic matter here, such as sugar, amino acids, and fats, will be converted into energy. Where are they converted? After entering the mitochondria, aerobic respiration is carried out here to generate energy. This process is a bit like this thermal power plant, which generates electricity by burning coal or natural gas. Mitochondria in cells are also produced by burning sugar, fat or amino acids, but this process does not produce electricity, but adenosine triphosphate, abbreviated as ATP , which is the most basic and direct energy supply for all life activities. At the same time, this gland also produces nicotinamide adenine and dinucleotide phosphate, which is an important reducing agent. This substance is needed in many biological syntheses, including the synthesis of our human cells. It is conceivable that once there is a problem with the mitochondria, the cells will face the risk of power outages , and existing research has also shown that osteoarthritis is indeed directly related to this problem .

Now that the problem has been found, wouldn't it be enough to just repair the problematic mitochondria? This idea seems clear, but it is difficult to implement. It's like building a large-scale project in a city without energy supply, which is a fantasy. So scientists took a different approach and found a solution from spinach. In organisms, it is not only mitochondria that can produce ATP , but also chloroplasts . If the former is a thermal power station, the latter is a photovoltaic power station, and the thylakoids in the chloroplasts are like photovoltaic solar cells, which can directly convert light energy into ATP.

The question arises again, how can we transplant plant thylakoids into human cells and make them work normally? Under normal circumstances, plant thylakoids are foreign bodies to the human body. After entering the human body, the human body will treat them as invaders and clean them up. So the research team came up with a good idea. They extracted the thylakoids from the spinach chloroplasts, and then wrapped the surface of the spinach thylakoids with animal cell membranes and introduced them into animal cells. After that, the animal cells will think that it is the same kind. Not only will they not reject or remove it, but they will also swallow these packaged thylakoids into the cells. After entering the cells, the thylakoids will remove the outer shell and can work. As long as they are exposed to specific light, they can produce enough ATP, which solves the problem of cell energy supply, the problem of chondrocyte necrosis, and of course the problem of osteoarthritis.

However, the research is still in the laboratory stage, and a lot of experimental work is needed before it can be applied clinically. Therefore, it will take some time before it can be truly practical. If someone advises you to eat more spinach and get more sun exposure to prevent arthritis, it will not have any effect.

Author: Shi Jun