connective tissue

Like I'm just making things up in my head and I'm not.

Now I know I have a connective tissue disorder, hypermobile, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos, which makes me stretchy, too stretchy.

And it helps as part of why my body can't regulate all this other stuff.

And all these things go, go with neurodivergence people have weird immune responses just it's it's so i want to ask our listeners to send us their experiences you know email us at podcast at jodycarlton.com we want to hear i want to hear from them so that we can just start saying see see see this is

If that's your goal.

You got to talk about the connective tissue because this one's fascinating and you are much more aware of all the terminology here.

Yeah, these are the running specific adaptations that are coming from volume, that comes from you running more.

When you run more, your connective tissue is going to adapt to the load that you place on it.

This is one of the beautiful things about our body in general.

Your body adapts to the load that you place on it as long as you're not overdoing it and overloading the body excessively because then your body just breaks down.

But essentially, when we go back to just workout principles, In order to get stronger, and this is if you want stronger muscles or if you want stronger connective tissue, so when I say connective tissue, tendons, your ligaments, your bones, all of those things adapt more slowly than cardiovascular fitness.

So that sustained low to moderate intensity running over time is what builds that structural resilience that helps to keep you injury-free.

Upon return to Earth, the hormonal signals change to favour protein synthesis and gravity again stimulates muscles.

Protein synthesis accelerates and muscle mass begins to recover over weeks and months.

Collagen production decreases during spaceflight, which affects the strength and integrity of connective tissues, tendons, ligaments and skin.

Collagen is the primary structural protein that provides strength to tissues.

The cells that produce collagen, called fibroblasts, respond to mechanical stress and stretch.

In space, without gravitational loading, the mechanical stress on connective tissues decreases.

The fibroblasts respond by reducing collagen production.

Simultaneously, the elevated stress hormones increase the breakdown of collagen.

But try pulling on your Achilles tendon, or these wing tendons here, and there isn't a lot to give.

That's because a tendon is an example of dense connective tissue with a lot more collagen.

You could chew and chew and chew on a collagen-dense tendon and never get anywhere.

That's why butchers trim off most dense connective tissue before selling cuts of meat.

So loose connective tissues have fewer fibers and more cells and more ground substance.

Areolar tissue is the most common loose connective tissue you have found all over your body, just under your epithelial tissue and wrapped around your organs.

And just like that chaotic cafeteria packed with middle schoolers, we'd be hopeless messes without our hierarchy of organization, our inner and outer boundaries, and the ability of our systems to communicate with each other.

That is what our tissues do for us, and we wouldn't exist without them.

Shilajit is a really complex natural substance, right? It contains fulvic acid, humic compounds, minerals, even antioxidants, and several other bioactive molecules.

And researchers believe that this combination, not necessarily one single ingredient per se, may be responsible for many of the effects we're seeing in the research, particularly around cellular energy, oxidative stress, inflammation, and connective tissue health.

One of the major areas researchers are interested in is its potential effect on cellular energy and mitochondrial function.

The theory here is that some of these compounds may help with mitochondrial efficiency or oxidative stress and the transport of nutrients and other molecules into our cells.

The researchers also saw favorable changes in markers related to bone turnover, oxidative stress, and inflammation.

Now, again, this isn't enough to say shilajit treats osteoporosis, but when we're talking about healthy aging and maintaining bone density, this becomes incredibly interesting.

And anything that potentially influences things like bone remodeling, inflammation, and oxidative stress, and connective tissues really can be beneficial.

Another really interesting area of research is collagen production, particularly because collagen isn't just about skin and wrinkles, right? It's a major structural protein throughout the body that's found in things like our tendons, ligaments, cartilage, bone, skin, and other connective tissues.