Joint-friendly recipes Joints, like the rest of the body, need a good supply of vegetables and fruits. Eating at least five vegetables and fruits a day is the only way to get micronutrients – vitamins and minerals – that you can’t get from other foods. The body needs calcium, zinc and vitamin C to heal, and multivitamin tablets may be effective, but there is no better source than fresh food. Refined oils are also good for the joints, and adding deep-sea fish (or an Omega-3 substitute), olive oil, avocados and almonds to your diet a few times a week can help significantly. It is important to protect the knee from cold and dampness because the knee joint is “skin and bones” and lacks muscle and fat protection, so it does not receive sufficient heat supply and therefore has a lower temperature than other parts of the body. Don’t sleep in dark and humid places, and don’t rinse your knee with cold water immediately when you sweat profusely in summer. Weight control The main cause of knee degeneration is long-term wear and tear, weight bearing and aging of the joints, coupled with calcium loss, and many middle-aged and older women are the main victims of knee osteoarthritis. Therefore, weight control is the most direct way to reduce the weight on the knee joint, which is very important to slow down the aging of the joint. Choosing a scientific approach to exercise There is a common confusion among people with osteoarthritis: should I be active with osteoarthritis? The general principle of the answer is: regardless of prevention or treatment of osteoarthritis, exercise is necessary. Exercise can make bones strong, muscles strong, enhance the nutrition of cartilage in the joints, improve and delay the aging of cartilage, which is the fundamental way to prevent osteoarthritis. But the key is to have a correct method and activity level. Focus on preparatory activities when doing physical exercise should do a good job of preparing for the activity, gently stretching the knee joint for at least 1 minute. Change your position and posture often and avoid sitting or standing for long periods of time. When you are sitting or squatting, stand up and walk around every once in a while, or massage the knee joint so that it is not fixed in the same position for a long time. This not only helps to promote blood circulation in the knee joint, but also reduces the adhesions of tissues inside and outside the joint. Here are two exercise methods to strengthen the lower limb activity exercise Method one Take a supine position, put a pillow about 10 cm high behind the knee, let the lower leg alternately lift up to the knee joint completely straight, and then put it down, each time to do 20-30 times, can be arranged in the morning wake up and night before bed, so that the knee joint can be fully stretched, rotation, to prevent its stiffness and straightness. Method two straight leg raise functional exercise. In the supine position, raise the lower limb completely straight, about 30 degrees from the bed. Insist on 5~10 seconds, put it down and relax for 2~3 seconds. Each exercise 15 minutes, twice a day. The main point is that the whole process of knee should be completely straight, not bent, the purpose is to exercise the muscles around our knees, muscle strength is the best support for the knee. Generally speaking, people with poor knee function should avoid three kinds of exercise: joint weight-bearing exercise, such as long-distance running, mountain climbing, etc.; exercise that requires frequent twisting of the knee joint, such as twisting the rice ballad, etc.; repeated squatting exercise. Activities such as swimming, cycling and stretching, which are low weight-bearing, are ideal.