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*Extract from an article titled, “The Age of Arthritis”, published in the European edition of Time, June 9, 2003*
Meanwhile, a lot of effort has gone into figuring out how to replace damaged cartilage… At Cardiff Hospital, biomedicine professor Bruce Caterson is an enthusiastic advocate of cod liver oil’s ability to reduce inflammation. The benefits have been noted ever since Manchester physician, Thomas Percival, observed in 1782 that cod liver oil relieved “those cases of premature decrepitude…. by which the flexibility of the joints is impaired, so as to crackle of want of a due secretion of synovia.” Caterson has conducted a clinical trial that showed the Omega-3 fatty acids in the oil have an effect in 100% of patients.
Sometimes surgery is unavoidable. Each year doctors in the U.K. perform replacements. In traditional replacement surgery, the bones of the joint are replaced with artificial material, which tends to wear away, producing a fine particulate that further damages the bone. This process eventually leads to a loosening of the replacement joint, which causes further pain. So patients are advised only to have replacement surgery as a last resort.