Glucosamine supplements and glucosamine combined with chondroitin sulfate and MSM are highly touted as treatment for arthritic pain in the knee, hip, spine and shoulder. Indeed millions of dollars a year are spent on these supplements.
Are they worthwhile? Do they really work?
The answer to this rather simple question is not easy to come by. In fact this statement holds true for many other supplements. The reason is that in order to really determine the efficacy of any product it is necessary to do a double blind controlled study. This means that neither the investigator nor the subject knows whether they are taking the medicine or a placebo. Doing a study such as this is very expensive and labor intensive. Therefore these studies are rarely done on supplements.
Recently a Dutch study was published that followed 222 people with arthritis of the hip. After two years of taking 1500 milligrams of glucosamine sulfate a day, those who took the supplement had similar levels of pain, stiffness and disability as those taking a placebo. X rays of the hip also revealed no differences in the two groups. Another major study of arthritis of the knee had similar conclusions.
What does this mean for you? If you are taking one of these supplements and you are no better after three months there is no reason to continue with it. If you seem to be doing better because of the pill and you have no adverse side effects continue taking it. I see no reason to stop if in your mind there has been benefit.
