Stress reactions in connective tissues: a molecular hypothesis

The proper qualitative and quantitative stimuli necessary to maintain bone, cartilage, tendon, and ligament ability to bear load has yet to be completely elucidated. Substantially greater investigation of these requirements has been accomplished for muscle than for dense and ordinary connective tissues; inferential proposals from these muscle observations have been made regarding connective tissues. This hypothesis postulates there is a highly structured inter-relationship in terms of the homeostatic stimuli which are shared in common by these different tissues as suggested by the close anatomic and functional relationship they have evolved. The evolutionary influence of man's exercise patterns upon these stimuli, their mode of transduction into adaptive cellular response, and the vulnerability to over-use injury their loss creates is hypothesized.