Are having stairs in your home good for your health?

[StateOfMyHead]

I'm under no illusion that I'm approximating anywhere close to being elite by doing this. But from a strength and physical perspective, I'm dominating my pre pregnancy self(when my wife was pregnant, not me off course).

Ha, this cracked me up. I stopped mid sentence and thought wait I thought burritos was a dude.

[pierre]

If we ever come up with an answer to that question, and a way to stimulate chondrocytes to grow and divide (without turning into chondrosarcoma), we will be putting a lot of orthopedic surgeons out of business. If you think about it, it’s weird that cartilage wears down, but bone does not. Bone can generally regrow and repair itself. Why can’t cartilage? For a while there was some hope that stem cell injections would allow cartilage to become self repairing, but that doesn’t seem to have worked.

A true cure for osteoarthritis (as opposed to surgical joint replacement) would be an absolute game changer in terms of improving the life and health of older people. Fingers crossed that some smart people eventually figure the puzzle out.

How certain are you that OA is a strictly a wear and tear phenomenon? Do you think diet can play a role in your likelihood of developing OA? Is it possible that the cure to OA was abolished a hundred years ago when big food changed the diets of Americans (and eventually the rest of the world)?

I think context (diet and lifestyle) matters. I’d also like to believe that I have more control over the aging of my body rather than having to sit back and watch it fall apart. There is pretty good evidence that the way you breathe and the food you eat can alter the structure of your face. I’d say there is a good chance your nutrition (and the nutrition of your parents) plays a bigger role than you think in how the rest of your body ages as well. I also think that a person eating an appropriate diet and putting a lot of “wear and tear” on their body would suffer less than a person eating junk and sitting in a lazy boy all day.

Weston A Price’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration written almost a century ago is a good.

[burritos]

If we ever come up with an answer to that question, and a way to stimulate chondrocytes to grow and divide (without turning into chondrosarcoma), we will be putting a lot of orthopedic surgeons out of business. If you think about it, it’s weird that cartilage wears down, but bone does not. Bone can generally regrow and repair itself. Why can’t cartilage? For a while there was some hope that stem cell injections would allow cartilage to become self repairing, but that doesn’t seem to have worked.

A true cure for osteoarthritis (as opposed to surgical joint replacement) would be an absolute game changer in terms of improving the life and health of older people. Fingers crossed that some smart people eventually figure the puzzle out.

Do we know with a hundred percent certainty that chondrocytes can't repair itself? While I can't micronize myself and upload an iphone video the machinations of the subcellular mitochondrial implosion, I believe that when metabolism goes to crap, so do all histologic categories. What perturbs metabolism? Overeating, modern processed foods, inactivity, stress, bad sleep, and loneliness. Addressing these things through the ICD cash register is highly unprofitable. Plus one don't sound esoteric or convincing, just like the way I'm sounding right now.

[burritos]

As his name implies, yes he thinks you squat wrong, has some evidence to back it up. You can get the basic gist of his philosophy for free on YouTube

I'm under no illusion that I'm approximating anywhere close to being elite by doing this. But from a strength and physical perspective, I'm dominating my pre pregnancy self(when my wife was pregnant, not me off course).

[artemis]

I tell patients that all the time. "It's a wear and tear condition, it's a function of age, not much you can do about it. The decline is inevitable. Live with it." End of discussion. Bill 99213. Rinse and repeat. But why do chondrocytes wear and tear faster than others?

If we ever come up with an answer to that question, and a way to stimulate chondrocytes to grow and divide (without turning into chondrosarcoma), we will be putting a lot of orthopedic surgeons out of business. If you think about it, it’s weird that cartilage wears down, but bone does not. Bone can generally regrow and repair itself. Why can’t cartilage? For a while there was some hope that stem cell injections would allow cartilage to become self repairing, but that doesn’t seem to have worked.

A true cure for osteoarthritis (as opposed to surgical joint replacement) would be an absolute game changer in terms of improving the life and health of older people. Fingers crossed that some smart people eventually figure the puzzle out.

[pierre]

Everything behind a paywall; 1.4m Instagram followers; "as heard on Joe Rogan." That's three strikes against! What magic elixir is he selling?

All classical squat and lunge training dictates keeping knees from falling over toes. Is he recommending something different?

Are Nordic ham curls or sled pulls better than properly executed back squats, traditional deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, and Romanian deadlifts?

As his name implies, yes he thinks you squat wrong, has some evidence to back it up. You can get the basic gist of his philosophy for free on YouTube

[FIREshrink]

Because of him I do 10 full nordic hamstring curls a day(no pillows).

Everything behind a paywall; 1.4m Instagram followers; "as heard on Joe Rogan." That's three strikes against! What magic elixir is he selling?

All classical squat and lunge training dictates keeping knees from falling over toes. Is he recommending something different?

Are Nordic ham curls or sled pulls better than properly executed back squats, traditional deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, and Romanian deadlifts?

[burritos]

Is youtube following what I'm typing in WCI?

[burritos]

You’ll get no argument from me there!

I think it is easy to forget that for most of history the physically disabled were “out of sight, out of mind,” and older house designs reflect that. For much of history, if somebody became severely physically disabled, they became a shut in if they could not manage stairs, curbs, etc. Society at large made no effort to accommodate these people. Heck, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which feels like it has been around forever, was only passed in 1990. Now we are more aware of disability and more determined to make spaces accessible to the disabled, And newer home designs (which feature first floor full bedrooms and bathrooms and wider hallways and doorways) have changed accordingly.

I tell patients that all the time. "It's a wear and tear condition, it's a function of age, not much you can do about it. The decline is inevitable. Live with it." End of discussion. Bill 99213. Rinse and repeat. But why do chondrocytes wear and tear faster than others?

[StarTrekDoc]

There's walking exercise and theres running marathons exercise. Or pickle ball vs four hours tennis exercise. One probably hastens OA while other is probably beneficial to aging movement and prevention.

As in life in general. All things in moderation for the win.

Btw. Having a dog was the root cause of my stair injury. 😡😍🤪🥰😡🐕💉

[artemis]

Can we all at least agree that split level houses were a terrible idea?

You’ll get no argument from me there!

I think it is easy to forget that for most of history the physically disabled were “out of sight, out of mind,” and older house designs reflect that. For much of history, if somebody became severely physically disabled, they became a shut in if they could not manage stairs, curbs, etc. Society at large made no effort to accommodate these people. Heck, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which feels like it has been around forever, was only passed in 1990. Now we are more aware of disability and more determined to make spaces accessible to the disabled, And newer home designs (which feature first floor full bedrooms and bathrooms and wider hallways and doorways) have changed accordingly.

[artemis]

So I usually agree with you, but your first paragraph is untrue. Plenty of studies show improvement in OA with regards to function and pain with weight bearing exercise. Plus, exercise also helps balance!

Not everyone who exercises will grow old gracefully. But if one does not exercise, there is a very low chance that they will age well. There is no such thing as a fountain of youth, but as my dad likes to say “once you stop exercising, that’s when they start digging the hole”

You seem to think I am anti-exercise. I am not. But osteoarthritis is an excessive wear injury. The joint cartilage is wearing away, and it will not regrow. Putting an osteoarthritic joint under compressive load thinking it will help the arthritis is like driving a car with worn brake pads around town doing a lot of braking because somehow this will help the brake pads regenerate. It just makes things worse. The best exercise for an osteoarthritic joint is exercise that puts the joint through a full range of motion, but without subjecting it to a compressive load. This is why exercises like cycling/spin class, swimming, and water aerobics and water weight training are so popular with older people. They permit an excellent cardio workout, a reasonable amount of resistance training, and put the joints through a full range of motion, but without forcing the joints to bear additional weight which will cause the cartilage to wear faster.
And I agree that exercise helps with balance, but if someone is dealing with a neurological condition the improvement may not be enough to make stairs safe.

if you go back to burritos’ first post on this thread, he starts off with saying “aside from falling down the stairs” when question of whether having stairs in the house is a health benefit. That’s a pretty big aside to include when talking about older people. One big reason why older people prefer to avoid stairs in their houses is because if they do fall down them, they are more likely to be seriously injured than a younger person would be.

[artemis]

I know everyone is different. But using your expertise/opinion/law of averages can you proffer a general guessitmate at what age is the event horizon when age related pathophysiological decline is a certainty?

There’s so much variation between individuals that it is hard to give a good guesstimate, but from what I have seen for most people the transition appears to occur sometime after age 75-80.

[Lordosis]

I know everyone is different. But using your expertise/opinion/law of averages can you proffer a general guessitmate at what age is the event horizon when age related pathophysiological decline is a certainty?

40

But when I hit 40 I will change my opinion to 50

[AR]

Can we all at least agree that split level houses were a terrible idea?

My nearly 80-year-old father-in-law moved into one. Even crazier is that it is a age restricted community (only 50 and up allowed) and nearly every single house in there is a split level.