Shilajit for bone and muscle health

Shilajit is an effective and safe supplement that can have a positive effect on your overall health and well-being. And is known from centuries as a rejuvenator and an antiaging compound. Shilajit is also said to strengthen bones and protect against osteoporosis. Given shilajit’s human use for thousands of year and its apparent ability to promote regeneration/repair, it should be easily translated into practice and could become the standard of care for bone/cartilage tissue pathologies. 

Let us a take a quick look at what happens to our bone and muscle health as the ageing process occurs and how Shilajit can help.

According to WHO report of year 2021,

• Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years will nearly double from 12% to 22%.

• By 2020, the number of people aged 60 years and older will outnumber children younger than 5 years.

• In 2050, 80% of older people will be living in low- and middle-income countries.

• The pace of population ageing is much faster than in the past.

• All countries face major challenges to ensure that their health and social systems are ready to make the most of this demographic shift.

Ageing is the process of becoming older. Ageing brings with itself malfunctioning of some organs, pain etc. Some ageing signs are inevitable but are not a cause for pain and discomfort like wrinkles and grey hair. But some like bone and muscle malfunctioning or diseases are very painful to bear. However, unlike grey hair and wrinkles, muscles and joint malfunctions are not unescapable as presumed earlier. While muscle pain can occur due to strain or injuries, joint pain is mostly caused by diseases like arthritis, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis etc. Researchers now suggest that many factors associated with ageing are due to inactivity, unhealthy lifestyle and innutritious diet. Maintaining healthy behaviors throughout life, particularly eating a balanced diet, engaging in regular physical activity and refraining from tobacco use, all contribute to reducing the risk of non-communicable diseases, improving physical and mental capacity and delaying care dependency, in short graceful ageing. While a balance diet is everyone’s dream to achieve, but it is easier said than done, while taking dietary supplements is a sure shot way to help reduce or reverse the risk of disability and chronic diseases. Shilajit, is one such supplement that can help you age gracefully.

Changes in muscle due to ageing

• Muscle fibers reduce in number and shrink in size.
• Muscle tissue is replaced more slowly and lost muscle tissue is replaced with a tough, fibrous tissue.
• Changes in the nervous system cause muscles to have reduced tone and ability to contract.

Changes in bones due to ageing

• An inactive lifestyle causes bone wastage.
• Hormonal changes – in women, menopause triggers the loss of minerals in bone tissue. In men, the gradual decline in sex hormones leads to the later development of osteoporosis.
• Bones lose calcium and other minerals, especially in colder regions.

Changes in joints due to ageing

Joints are the part of the body where bones meet. In a joint, bones do not directly contact each other. They are cushioned by cartilage that lines your joints (articular cartilage), synovial membranes around the joint and a lubricating fluid inside your joints (synovial fluid). As you age, joint movement becomes stiffer and less flexible because the amount of lubricating fluid inside your joints decreases and the cartilage becomes thinner. Ligaments also tend to shorten and lose some flexibility, making joints feel stiff. Many of these age-related changes to joints are caused by lack of exercise. Movement of the joint, and the associated ‘stress’ of movement, helps keep the fluid moving. Being inactive causes the cartilage to shrink and stiffen, reducing joint mobility.

Importance of joint and muscle health

The joints in our body provide flexibility to it, any pain in joints can affect our normal movements and thus our quality of life. The joints can wear down due to ageing or due to diseases. It is therefore very important that our joints are healthy. Healthy joints pose a less risk of becoming worn down easily.

There are various ways to keep your muscles and bones healthy. Vitamin D and calcium are important supplements the body needs to help maintain joint and muscle health. Moreover, substances having strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, are also helpful in maintaining our bone and joint health because they protect our body cells from damage. Antioxidants are available as man-made or natural substances. Shilajit is a naturally occurring substance having the properties of an antioxidant as well as anti-inflammatory.

What is Shilajit?

Shilajit is a Sanskrit word, which means “Winner of rock” and “Conqueror of mountains and destroyer of weakness” .Shilajit is a sticky substance found primarily in the rocks of Himalayas. It develops over centuries from the slow decomposition of plant matter and minerals. Shilajit is commonly used in Ayurveda medicine. Shilajit also known in the north of India as salajit, shilajatu, mimie, or mummiyo  is found from high mountain rocks, especially in the Himalayans mountains between India and Nepal, although it has been also found in Russia, Tibet, Afghanistan, and now in the north of Chile, named as Andean Shilajit. The health benefits of shilajit may differ from region to region, depending on the place from which it was extracted. 

It is a potent and very safe dietary supplement, restoring the energetic balance and potentially able to prevent several diseases. One of its main components is Fulvic acid, a compound known to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It expands the walls of body cells and helps in the absorption of minerals from the food. Fulvic acid due to its unique properties protect against free radicals and cellular damage, may contribute, because of regular use of Shilajit, to longevity, a slower ageing process and overall better musculoskeletal health. Shilajit is also said to heal damaged tissues, strengthen bones and protect against osteoporosis. According to a research conducted by the Indiana University, shilajit may possess anabolic bone/cartilage properties. Its anti-inflammatory property is also beneficial for bone and muscle health of people living in colder regions and higher altitudes. Shilajit has been clinically proven to be very helpful in conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and gout as it nourishes the joints and reduces the inflammation and pain.

• Antioxidant properties

• Anti-inflammatory

• Analgesic antifungal properties 

• Ability to interact positively with other drugs 

• Protective properties in high altitudes 

Traditional use of Shilajit

Traditionally, shilajit is consumed by people from Nepal and the North of India, and children usually take it with milk in their breakfast. The Sherpas, group of some 150,000 mountain-dwelling people of Nepal; Sikkim state, India; and Tibet (China) claim to have shilajit as part of their diet; they constitute a population of strong men with very high levels of a healthy longevity. Shilajit is also a traditional medicine used in many countries such as India for thousands of years to treat many diseases including bone diseases. There are two important characteristics of the ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine: that is, to increase physical strength and to promote human health. Shilajit has a comfortable position as the Rasayana (means nutrition at all levels from macro to micro-cellular level), in the Ayurvedic medicine, because of its excellence, is well known in the Eastern culture, and now being introduced with great interest in the west. 

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Sources:

• SHILAJIT, A NOVEL REGULATOR OF BONE/CARTILAGE HEALING Nawaf Yousef Labban School of Dentistry, Indiana University,February 2013
• PubMed Central :National institutes of health