Frankincense extract stopped collagen breakdown in cartilage samples in the lab

What they did

The researchers caused cartilage breakdown in the lab by treating cartilage explants, small pieces of cartilage kept alive in culture, with interleukin-1 alpha (5 ng/ml) and oncostatin M (10 ng/ml) over 28 days. Some explants also received Boswellia frereana extract at 100 µg/ml. They measured collagen breakdown, MMP9 and MMP13 messenger RNA, MMP9 production and activation, and markers of inflammation, and identified the extract's main constituent.

What they found

The extract inhibited the breakdown of the collagen matrix. It reduced MMP9 and MMP13 messenger RNA, inhibited MMP9 expression and activation, and significantly reduced nitrite (a stable product of nitric oxide), prostaglandin E2 and cyclooxygenase-2. The main constituent was epi-lupeol. The authors describe this as the first report of these properties for Boswellia frereana.

What it can't tell us

This was cartilage in a dish, and the abstract does not say what species it came from. The extract went straight onto the tissue at 100 µg/ml, so the study tells us nothing about what reaches cartilage when someone swallows boswellia. Boswellia frereana is a different species from Boswellia serrata, the one used in most human trials, and its main constituent here was epi-lupeol, not AKBA.

Why it matters

It measured what matters most, collagen breakdown in intact cartilage, rather than an enzyme level alone. The extract held that breakdown back while lowering the MMP13 message, which ties the enzyme result to the tissue result in the same experiment.

The paper

1. Blain EJ, Ali AY, Duance VC. Boswellia frereana (frankincense) suppresses cytokine-induced matrix metalloproteinase expression and production of pro-inflammatory molecules in articular cartilage. Phytother Res 2010.
   PMID 19943332DOI 10.1002/ptr.3055

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