One person's choices. The tag on any line below describes the cartilage literature, never my choice — and my choice never moves a tag. Most of this stack is taken for healing, methylation or healthspan, and the entries cover those literatures too. The entries are the reference; this page is a disclosure.
From the author · one page for the whole site
What I take, and why
The entries say what the trials found, in the third person. This page is the other voice: what I actually swallowed, what I refused, what I dropped — including the lines where my habit and the evidence disagree.
What I take
Collagen peptides, 15 g twice daily + vitamin C
Pooled pain benefit in knee OA across many trials, tendon and nail results for the other two fractions, and one trial of this exact 30 g split dose that measured absorption but no change in synthesis. the entry →
Collagen peptides, 15 g twice daily + vitamin C
What I do, and why
Thirty grams a day, split morning and evening — a 40/40/20 blend of FORTIGEL, TENDOFORTE and VERISOL — with a gram of vitamin C. The effect I can see is my fingernails, which have gone thick and strong enough that other people comment on it. VERISOL is the fraction with the nail trial behind it, and that is the part of the blend I'd defend first.
Vitamin C, 1 g
A randomised crossover in 133 people with OA found 1 g/day improved pain; plasma saturates completely at that dose, and the collagen trials pair their peptides with about 50 mg. the entry →
Vitamin C, 1 g
What I do, and why
A gram with the morning collagen. The enzymes that build collagen cannot run without vitamin C, so taking the two together is the obvious move.
BPC-157, 250 µg twice daily, 45-day cycles
Around 230 published studies, mostly rodent healing models, with a first randomised human trial in hamstring injury under way. the entry →
BPC-157, 250 µg twice daily, 45-day cycles
What I do, and why
Two doses a day for 45 days, a few times a year. I take it for healing — the tendon, ligament, muscle and gut work is a large body of research, and the mechanism papers that matter most for tendon come from groups with no connection to the original lab. A phase 2 hamstring trial is running now, and that readout is the one I'm waiting on.
TB-500, occasionally, alongside a BPC-157 cycle
Repair results across cardiac, corneal and dermal models; human trials in eye and skin disease missed their primary endpoints. the entry →
TB-500, occasionally, alongside a BPC-157 cycle
What I do, and why
Most cycles I run BPC-157 without it. Thymosin beta-4 is overexpressed across tumours and tracks worse outcomes, and oncology's direction of travel is to block it rather than supply it — nobody has shown that giving it to a person causes anything, but that is the risk I weigh when I decide, and usually I leave it out.
NMN, 1 g
NAD+ levels rise dose-dependently in human trials; functional endpoints are mixed, and the rodent cartilage work has no human counterpart. the entry →
NMN, 1 g
What I do, and why
A gram every morning. I take it for the NAD+ and healthspan literature, not for my knee — NAD+ falls with age, and raising it back is the one part of this that reproduces reliably in people. Any joint benefit would be a bonus I'm not counting on.
Trans-resveratrol, 500 mg
A wide human trial record with mostly small or null results; the one publicly funded knee-OA trial found a 0.6-point difference on a 100-point pain scale. the entry →
Trans-resveratrol, 500 mg
What I do, and why
Taken with the NMN, on the sirtuin logic — NAD+ as the substrate, this as the activator. Sirtuins are the enzymes that do the repair-and-maintenance work the NAD+ is for, so supplying the fuel and leaving the engine alone never made sense to me. The one thing that gives me pause is a training study where it blunted the adaptation, and I'm still weighing that.
TMG (Betaine), 1.5–3 g
Betaine lowers homocysteine 12% at 1.5 g and 15% at 3 g in controlled trials; the cartilage work is rodent, at doses far above these. the entry →
TMG (Betaine), 1.5–3 g
What I do, and why
Methylation support alongside the NMN. The dose-response was measured at exactly this range, and it sits below where the cholesterol signal turns up.
Zinc picolinate, 50–100 mg
Zinc is a cofactor across matrix enzymes; the joint trials that exist are old RA studies, and the best-characterised cartilage pathway runs toward matrix breakdown. the entry →
Zinc picolinate, 50–100 mg
What I do, and why
For tissue repair and immune function. Zinc is structural to a long list of the enzymes that build and remodel connective tissue, and it is one of the minerals a hard training load actually depletes, so I would rather run it high than run it short. I cycle within the range rather than sit at the top of it, because of the copper trade-off the entry sets out.
Vitamin K2 (MK-7), 200 µg
Six cohorts link low vitamin K status to faster cartilage damage, and people on vitamin K antagonists show 2.5× the OA progression; the MK-7 trials measured arteries and bone. the entry →
Vitamin K2 (MK-7), 200 µg
What I do, and why
Two hundred micrograms with the morning fat, for the matrix Gla protein pathway. MK-7 is the form that actually reaches the blood at capsule doses, and 200 µg sits inside the band the multi-year trials used.
Curcumin C3, 1 g
Around forty knee-OA trials show pain relief matching NSAIDs with fewer adverse events; blood levels vary 57-fold between formulations without tracking outcomes. the entry →
Curcumin C3, 1 g
What I do, and why
A gram of the C3 extract daily, for the inflammatory side of the ledger. It is the most-trialled botanical there is for a knee, and it holds up: pain relief that matches ibuprofen and diclofenac across dozens of trials, with fewer stomach problems than either. That last part is the whole point — it does the job I would otherwise be reaching for daily NSAIDs to do, which is a trade I am happy with.
GHK-Cu, 2 mg daily
A large wound-repair literature, plus three cartilage studies from one laboratory, including new hyaline cartilage in a minipig defect model. the entry →
GHK-Cu, 2 mg daily
What I do, and why
Two milligrams a day, for tissue repair. It drives matrix synthesis — collagen, chondroitin sulfate, decorin — and in the cartilage work the collagen the chondrocytes made was predominantly type II, which is the kind that matters. Worth knowing the copper alone reproduces several of those effects.
Cartalax, 2 ml daily × 20 days, every 6 months
Two 2023 cell studies with cartilage endpoints and one animal study; no human trial, and nearly all of it from the originating institute. the entry →
Cartalax, 2 ml daily × 20 days, every 6 months
What I do, and why
Twenty days, twice a year, paired with Sigumir. The tripeptide itself has chondrocyte data behind it now — it raised SOX9, aggrecan and type II collagen in aging human stem cells — which is more than I could have said for it when I started.
Sigumir, 30-day course every 6 months
The cartilage polypeptide complex has cell-culture data; no published work establishes that the studied complex is the marketed preparation. the entry →
Sigumir, 30-day course every 6 months
What I do, and why — against my own tag
A 30-day course alongside the Cartalax, twice a year. The idea behind the bioregulators is that short peptides pulled from a tissue signal to that same tissue, and for a cartilage extract that is a mechanism I find worth a course. What the published work has not done is establish that the complex it studies is the one in the capsule.
SS-31, 4 mg daily × 25 days, twice a year
Chondrocyte rescue after impact injury in explants, within a six-hour window; the human trials are in mitochondrial and heart disease. the entry →
SS-31, 4 mg daily × 25 days, twice a year
What I do, and why
Twenty-five days, twice a year, for mitochondrial function. The cartilage-explant rescues are the most striking preclinical result in anything I take, and the molecule has an FDA approval behind it in another disease, so the safety picture is unusually well characterised for something this experimental.
Pentosan polysulfate, one SC course a year
Three placebo-controlled human trials with joint endpoints, decades of veterinary use, and a pivotal phase 3 with results expected in 2027. the entry →
Pentosan polysulfate, one SC course a year
What I do, and why
A subcutaneous course once a year, by off-label prescription. It has the strongest human trial evidence of anything I take, and the phase 3 will settle whether it stays. I have my eyes checked before each course. This drug can damage the retina after years of use, and while the reported cases were people swallowing it daily for a decade, barely any of a tablet gets absorbed — an injection delivers the lot.
Dry sauna, 20–30 min daily
Trials in rheumatic disease show short-term pain and stiffness relief; the cartilage question has not been measured in people. the entry →
Dry sauna, 20–30 min daily
What I do, and why
Twenty to thirty minutes most days, and the best part of the day. The honest reading is relief and recovery rather than cartilage repair — this is the one habit I'd keep even if the joint story collapsed entirely.
What I don't take, despite the evidence
Hyaluronic acid injections
Tens of thousands of trial patients; the pooled effect sits below clinical significance. the entry →
Hyaluronic acid injections
What I do, and why
I had a course once and felt nothing from it, so I didn't go back — and the pooled trial data reads the same way my knee did. It stays on this list because people keep being offered it.