Glucosamine

Started by bva
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bva

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Hi,

What is your opinion about Glucosamine?

Thank you so much in advance.
 
The results are not conclusive. If you are going to recommend glucosamine, recommend glucosamine sulfate (not hydrochloride since there's a lot more research done on sulfate) 1500 mg daily. It may take up to 8 weeks to work. If there's no improvement, then the patient should stop. It doesn't work on everyone. In addition, there's lack of evidence that show chondroitin and glucosamine work better than glucosamine by itself.
 
I was looking at this the other day at work. I couldn't find a formulation that had glucosamine sulfate with chondroitin. Ninety-nine percent of the products on the shelf were glucosamine hydrochloride. As such, I sent the patient to Vitamin Cottage.

When talking to patients curious about glucosamine/chondroitin, be sure to ask about allergies to shellfish. Chondroitin comes from their shells and could cause a reaction.
 
It won't hurt to try. I will recommend it to people looking for something to try, and I tell them to keep a pain diary for 6-10 weeks. If no change by week 10, it's not going to work. I would say some 30% have some relief - some of it is probably just placebo effect (some 20% of pain patients get relief from sugar pills in any clinical trial), some may be real. It's hard to take it bid or tid, though, so it's hard to say whether it's not effective for that patient, or they are simply non-compliant.

P.S. Glucosamine is generally shellfish origin, most common chondroitin origin is beef cartilage. I think I have seen a completely synthetic brand somewhere...
 
Cool, I thought it was the other way around. I'll just keep shellfish and glucosamine categorized together.
 
The pharmacist that I work with said that Cosamin DS is the only glucosamine product that has been proven effective...This is from their website:
The exclusive ingredient found in CosaminDS is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) GAIT study. No other product contains the researched active material contained in CosaminDS
 
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