Benefit for Concord, NC Degenerated Discs from Pumpkin Leaves
Every year around this time, pumpkins are all over the place! We enjoy them for décor, but they offer so much more! News of late focuses on the benefits of their leaves to slow disc degeneration and even possibly encourage regeneration. That’s news to your Concord, NC chiropractor’s ear…and without doubt to our Concord, NC back pain and neck pain patients’ ears, too!
THE DISC – Healthy and Degenerated
Most treatments of back pain focus on easing the pain and returning function without a thought about how to slow the degenerative process and/or encourage regeneration. The intervertebral disc is made up of an inner core (nucleus pulposus) made of proteoglycans and a layered outer rim (annulus fibrosus) rich in collagen. Together, these two work as a shock absorber and stabilizer for the spine. Treatment choices for the degenerated disc come from understanding the processes that precede degeneration in order to help relieve discogenic pain more effectively. (1) Your chiropractor expores these mechanisms a lot!
PUMPKIN LEAVES AND CAROTENOIDS
It's recognized that pumpkin products and by-products (like leaves!) contain major carotenoids - β-carotene, α-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin – with β-carotene being the main one in most pumpkin varieties. The total content of carotenoids rests on several factors, one being the extraction process. Functional foods are developed from carotenoids which are said to add significantly to the multiple health benefits of the foods. (2) Nutrition can plan a role in disc health. Pumpkin and its by-products shouldn’t just be thrown away!
PUMPKIN LEAVES AND COLLAGEN AND PROTEINS AND DISC CELLS
One way to put pumpkins to work for us is described in a recent study about how the leaves of pumpkins may help. The acetone extract from Violina pumpkin (curcurbita moshata) leaves generated a significant rise in extracellular matrix components like aggrecan and collagen type II along with other proteins and stress response regulators in the degenerated intervertebral disc cells taken from degenerated disc tissues of spinal surgery patients. Markers indicating the presence and activity of stem cells were significantly increased as well. This news excited the researchers to declare that the hypothesis about how enough stimuli can support resident cells to repopulate the degenerated discs was thereby reinforced. The report overall concluded that data indicate that the discovery of molecules that may effectively reduce disc degeneration using a part of the pumpkin that most of us throw away as waste – the leaves! (3) Pure Chiropractic bets you’ll look at the pumpkin leaves differently this season!
CONTACT Pure Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates how nutrition may slow and possibly stop degeneration and promote regeneration via ingredients like chondroitin sulfate based on years of research performed already and how nutrition in combination with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management reduce and control spine pain. We’ll keep watching the pumpkin leaves’ research as it grows!
Schedule your Concord, NC chiropractic appointment now to visit us this pumpkin season!
