The Cartilage Guide
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01

Foods & Nutrition

7 entries

What you can eat or cook that has a plausible route to cartilage — what's actually in it, what survives digestion, and what the trials used.

Collagen from food

  • Bone brothThe most confidently marketed joint food, with zero joint studiesAnecdotal
  • Chicken feetGenuinely collagen-dense, demonstrably absorbed, never testedAnecdotal
  • Gelatin + vitamin C before exerciseThe Shaw/Baar timing protocol — one elegant study carrying a lot of weightPromising
  • Dietary collagen & glycineThe glycine-shortfall hypothesis: coherent, testable, never testedPreclinical

Nutrients & patterns

  • Omega-3s & fish oilThe best mechanism in the foods section, and the trials keep coming up nullPreclinical
  • The anti-inflammatory dietBiomarkers move, cohorts agree, and the effect sizes stay stubbornly smallPromising

Load & body weight

  • Body weight & the kneeThe one foods topic that earns strong — with clear dose-response numbersStrong

In this section

  • Collagen from food
  • Nutrients & patterns
  • Load & body weight

How to read the tags.

Strong — multiple RCTs. Promising — early human trials. Preclinical — animal / in-vitro. Anecdotal — community reports. Not supported — trials show no meaningful benefit.

Related: Supplements for the concentrated, dosed versions of the same building blocks.

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