Subject: what foods contain hyaluronic acid

[Guest guest]

Subject: what foods contain hyaluronic acid

Question: What foods contain hyaluronic acid? "

Answer: I have found very little information on this myself, though I

am aware of two possible sources. The first was mentioned in a

segment from ABC news about a hyaluronic acid consumption in a

village in Japan . In the 20/20 segment, " The Village of Long Life:

Could Hyaluronic Acid Be an Anti-Aging Remedy? " the town doctor

attributed the villager's long lives to " starchy root vegetables " --

satsumaimo, a type of sweet potato; satoimo, a sticky white potato;

konyaku, a gelatinous root vegetable concoction; and imoji, a potato

root. The doctor believes " these locally grown starches help

stimulate the body's natural creation of a substance called

hyaluronic acid, or HA, which aging bodies typically lose. This may

ward off the aging process by helping the cells of the body thrive

and retain moisture, keeping joints lubricated, protecting the retina

in eyes and keeping skin smooth and elastic. 'I have never seen

anyone suffer from skin cancer here, ' he says. 'I have seen a woman

in her 90s with spotless skin.' "

I have never read anything else about these vegetables stimulating

hyaluronic acid per se, but root vegetables do tend to have high

amounts of magnesium, so it would seem plausible that this could be

true. Recent research shows that root vegetables may also reduce

certain cancer risk.

The second source of hyaluronic acid I can think of would be to eat

animal parts known to contain a lot of hyaluronic acid. I make broth

for soup from boiled animal parts that contain a lot of skin, tendons

and joints. This is the one food that helped my fibromyalgia more

than anything else. I've also noticed that if I eat too much of this

broth my blood pressure rises, which is interesting because people

like me with connective tissue disorders usually have unusually low

blood pressure. It also seems to improve my breathing. My kids don't

like to eat too much soup, so I make a nutritious broth from bones

and vegetables for them and use it instead of water when I make rice

or quinoa, foods they will eat more readily.

See my section on " What Helped Me - Diet Changes " for the dietary

changes that helped my family's connective tissue disorder problems.

Supplement Recommendations for Rheumatoid Arthritis - " research has

shown that a daily bowl of home-made chicken soup-which is rich in

cartilage-may also help your painful joints. " - I suspect that at

least part of the reason for this is that chicken cartilage contains

hyaluronic acid.

Question: I've read a lot of articles about the benefits of large

quantities of vitamin C. Your hyaluronic acid section mentions that

ascorbic acid (vitamin C) might be bad for hyaluronic acid. Is

vitamin C good to take or not?

Answer: I personally have not had good experiences with taking large

supplemental doses of any single nutrient. Every nutrient in the

human body has a multitude of co-factors that need to be consumed in

balanced amounts for good health, so taking a single supplement may

solve one deficiency and then create more problems by triggering co-

factor deficiencies.

Vitamin C is a nutrient your body needs in the right amounts. If you

don't consume any vitamin C, sooner or later you will develop scurvy,

like sailors used to who went on long sea voyages. (British sailors

were named " Limies " because of the limes they would take on their

voyages to prevent scurvy.) Yet, too much vitamin C, as with too much

of any nutrient, can be toxic. Large doses of vitamin C may lower

other nutrient levels including vitamin B12, copper and selenium

blood levels

I do note a study in my hyaluronic acid section that found that

ascorbic acid can degrade hyaluronic acid. But this isn't necessarily

bad, in fact for some people, this maybe good thing. While

insufficient defective hyaluronic acid isn't ideal, too much HA may

not be so great either. High levels of hyaluonic acid have been

linked to different types of of cancers, including breast cancer, in

a variety of different studies. Interestingly, vitamin C is often

mentioned as being beneficial for breast and other cancers.

I've gotten a number of questions on hyaluronic acid and breast

cancer. To see all of the study abstracts linking these conditions,

go to PubMed, and enter:

hyaluronic acid breast cancer

in the search box.

In particular, check out this abstract, from cancer researchers at

the University of California San Francisco:

" A hyaluronan-rich environment often correlate with tumor

progression, and may be one mechanism for the invasive behavior of

malignancies. Eradication of hyaluronan by hyaluronidase

administration could reduce tumor aggressiveness and would provide,

therefore, a new anti-cancer strategy. "

For information on hyaluronidase (an enzyme that breaks down HA) and

hyaluronic acid, check out my mitral valve prolapse page.

Women with too low of estrogen levels are at higher risk for

conditions like fractures, osteoporosis and a lack of menstruation.

Women with high levels of estrogen tend to have increased risks of

blood clots, high bone density, high blood pressure and breast

cancer. It's not that estrogen is good or bad, it's just that both

unusually high levels and unusually low levels are linked to a

variety of adverse (and interestingly inverse) health conditions.

Perhaps the same may be true for hyaluronic acid.

HA and Other forms of Cancer -

In a paper on hyaluronic acid and colon cancer, researchers wrote

that " Hyaluronan (HA) is a cell-surface glycosaminoglycan that has

been implicated in cancer progression......These data suggest that HA

promotes adhesion to laminin and may thereby facilitate invasion of

the basement membrane and metastasis in colon carcinoma. "

In another study, researchers found that, " Hyaluronan a high-

molecular weight glycosaminoglycan, is considered to be involved in

the growth and progression of malignant tumours. "

Think of it this way: Your body needs a variety of ingredients in the

right proportions to function, just like you need a variety of

ingredients to make a cake. If you are making a cake and you are

short on eggs, it's okay to add more eggs, up to a certain amount. If

you are not short on eggs, then just adding more eggs is going to

ruin your cake. If you are short on flour but not eggs, but you keep

adding more eggs but no extra flour, you are really going to end up

with a mess.

It's the same basic principle with your body, only on a larger and

much more complex scale. Some people might have defective collagen

because they are short on vitamin C. For those people, getting extra

vitamin C in their diets would probably be good. But taking massive

doses of vitamin C, especially if a person isn't deficient in vitamin

C to begin with, probably isn't a good thing.

If you are concerned you may have a vitamin C deficiency or any other

nutritional deficiency, see my sections on Holistic Doctors and

Nutrition Testing.