Your knees are probably the most important part of your body if you participate in sports. They're used for everything from running to balancing to leveraging. It's no fun when you suffer a knee injury, and it's definitely not fun when your knees are arthritic.

Arthritic knees aren't necessarily caused by any particular injury. Arthritis can be a degenerative condition caused by hereditary, infection or any number of things. When it hits your knees it typically affects the meniscus in your knee. The meniscus is two parts of cartilage that sit between your knee joint. If you lose or injure that it's a long road to recovery, as meniscus doesn't regrow.

For that reason it's great news that Dr. Kevin Stone of the Stone Clinic has been researching the possibility of meniscus transplantation. This procedure involves taking menisci from organ donors and placing it into someone suffering from knee arthritis. In testing the procedure worked 42 of 47 times, which means that the menisci transplanted was viable in the patient.

To learn more about the importance of the meniscus, listen to Dr. Stone's podcast on the subject.