This subject interests me as my wife has suffered (to put it mildly) rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis for many, many years. The cause of these conditions is the destruction of the joints, in part by the body's own immune system.
I'm not an expert, nor do I want to discourage anyone from taking anything that might help them. But this is interesting reading:
GLUCOSAMINE SAFE? EFFECTIVE?
Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
A study in last week's British medical Journal, Lancet, [2001] shows for the first time that glucosamine helps to ****** the breakdown of cartilage. Up to now, studies showed only that glucosamine helps to relieve pain. People with arthritis received either 1500 mg of glucosamine or placebo. X rays of their knees showed that the placebo group lost more distance between the bones of their knees than the glucosamine group.
The ends of bones at the knee joint are covered with cartilage, so the greater the distance between the bones on X ray, the greater the amount of cartilage. There is a serious problem with the study. People with arthritis often cannot fully straighten their knees, so it is impossible to use distance between bones to determine how much cartilage is lost. For example, if a person bends his knees a little, he will have the bones closer together than when he holds his knees straight. That means that anything that blocks pain will allow person to straighten his knees and have a greater distance between the bones at the knee. You should get the same benefit from any pain medicine. Furthermore, the study was sponsored by Rotta Research Group, who could gain billions of dollars from sales promoted by this study.
An earlier editorial in Lancet, raises questions about the safety of glucosamine (2). Most research shows that glucosamine can help to relieve some of the pain associated with arthritis (3), but does not help to prevent cartilaginous damage and has not been shown to heal broken cartilage. Therefore, it is no more effective in treating arthritis than aspirin, but costs more than aspirin, but less than most brand name arthritis pain drugs that your doctor prescribes.
Glucosamine helps form aggrecan, the part of cartilage that allows cartilage to swell and shrink, acting like a shock absorber to help protect your knees from the trauma of running and walking. Adding glucosamine to cartilaginous cells in a test tube causes them to increases production of aggrecan (4).
However, in light of this good news, you should know that glucosamine blocks the effects of insulin, causing blood sugar levels to rise and(5,6,7) increasing likelihood of suffering the side effects of diabetes in susceptible people.
1) Lancet January 27, 2001
2 )Mark Adams: editorial The Lancet July 31, 1999, 354(9176):353-354.
3) Muller-Fabbender et al. Glucosamine compared to ibuprofen in osteoarthritis of the knee. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 1994;2:61-69.
4)Bassler et al. Stimulation of Proteoglycan production by glucosamine sulfate in chondrocytes isolated from human osteoarthritis articular cartilage in vitro. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 1998;6:427-434.
5) Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 1996;270:C803-11.
6) Diabetes 1995;45:1003-10089.
7) Proc Assoc Am Phys 1998;110:422-432.
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