I didn’t search for threads about this before, so I apologize if it’s been discussed. A buddy just got me started on some glucosamine and chondroitin. I’ve done a little research on this and have seen mixed reviews. Some people swear by it, others doubt its effectiveness. I’m currently 27 years old, in great shape, and don’t have any noticeable joint pain (yet), but my workout buddy mentioned the importance of “starting early.” He’s a supplement nut, nothing wrong with that though. My concern is starting now and spending $30 a month on some pills that I don’t necessarily need until I’m __ years old… Anyone use this stuff for an extended period of time and have thoughts on it? I just want to make sure Joe Montana and his “Joint Juice” isn’t a crock. I would be devastated.
Unfortunately, no better than a placebo.
http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/gait
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031502115.html
Won’t help, but won’t hurt. No studies in humans that demonstrate any benefit whatsoever.
Telling people that their favorite homeopathic nostrum is pointless based on randomized, prospective, peer-reviewed literature generally isn’t well-received. I wouldn’t belabor the point with your buddy. Let him spend his money if it makes him feel better in some way.
Or like me you could take for your arthritic (?) knees and back and get a measure of relief. I take 3000 mg of the combo a day with vitamin D. It has eased the pain and allows me to bend over and pick up a quarter, that is something I couldn’t do be starting taking GandC.
Granted I still have some pain and stiffness, but now I can control the pain with Tylenol 3. Couldn’t even touch the pain with Hydrocodone before. YMMV
Waste of money. Work out, eat right.
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Maybe it doesn’t work for everybody. I can definitely tell the deference if I stop taking it. My knees still bother me, but not as much when take regularly. Is it all in my head? I don’t think so.
For you guys that’s say it’s worthless, or a placebo, what’s your experience with it. First hand? Did you take it as directed? How long did you take it? Maybe I’ll experiment and stop taking it for awhile. I’m not usually one for snake oil, but I honestly believes it helps me. At least a little.
As far as working out and eating right, I do. Doesn’t seem to be helping my knees much.
If you believe that it makes you feel better then you should take it. It won’t hurt you.
pla·ce·bo (pl-sb)
n. pl. pla·ce·bos or pla·ce·boes
1.
a. A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient’s expectation to get well.
I’d love to compare joint injuries with you.
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I’m not trying to have a pissing contest with you about knee pain, but saying “it’s a waste of money. Work out and eat right.” is not an acceptable answer in my book. With a statement like that I can only assume you took it and it didn’t work for you. Fine. I accept that. If that’s the situation, let it be known. I eat very well and work out daily. By most standards I would be considered in pretty good shape. I also do not see any relief from knee pain from either my diet or exercise.
I would rather not take it. I could easily spend the money on something else. Like I said maybe I’ll try life without it. I also take fish oil. What are your views on that? It’s also supposed to benefit joints. Could I attribute reduction in knee pain more to that?
I got shot in my right elbow by a .45ACP 230gr hollow point. I never found any changes in my pain and movement from taking supplements. Swimming helps more than anything else.
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What supplements do you take that do help with joint pain? What foods do you avoid to prevent aggravating joint pain?
The knee pain we’re talking about is from osteoarthritis. That’s from cartilage that is missing from the joint allowing bone from the femur to rub directly on the top of the tibia. That cartilage isn’t coming back. You’re not going to regrow it by taking supplements, pills, or changing your diet, nor are you going to get any benefit from direct joint injections of cartilage precursors like Synvisc. Osteoarthritis of the knee is such a common problem in these days of an increasingly aging population and broad-based obesity that there is a huge contingent of BS products out there being marketed to people desperate to be able to walk or run without pain without having knee replacement surgery.
Control of knee pain from osteoarthritis is about controlling the inflammation with the use of oral anti-inflammatory meds (ibuprofen etc) or direct injection of steroids into the joint space periodically (hope that your doctor is careful about where he gets that steroid compounded). Arthroscopic resurfacing of the knee joint, a mainstay of treatment for many years has also been shown to be of no long term benefit. You might get some benefit from a rigorous exercise program targeting the quadriceps. Healthy quads help to stabilize the knee joint and minimize lateral sliding of the joint surfaces and to some degree make up for the functional lengthening of the collateral ligaments that get looser as the joint space narrows from the cartilage going away.
Orthopedic surgeons have spent decades trying to figure out how to minimize the disability from osteoarthritis of the knee. Things like chondroitin sulfate/glucosamine, Synvisc injections, and arthroscopic resurfacing etc have been repeatedly studied in depth over that period of time and frequently reported in a variety of peer-reviewed literature. None of it works to any statistically significant degree. What does come up, especially on the internet, is testimonial anecdotes about how well some of the stuff works for some individuals. No problem. Things like glucosamine/chondroitin sulfate won’t hurt a bit and most doctors have no problem with their patients trying it. The mind is a powerful thing and fully capable of convincing a person that the stuff is helping them a lot. In the end, it’s about controlling the pain, after all. It won’t forstall the end result for actually fixing the problem - joint replacement surgery - but if the pain is controlled, whether it be from the effect of anti-inflammatory medicine or the placebo effect from homeopathic nostrums advertised on satellite radio and late-night infomercials, then that’s a win and every day that it puts off the need for knee replacement surgery is a good deal.
I went through this for years. Chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine, knee injections, quad exercise. The period of time where the arthritis is bad enough to limit your lifestyle but not bad enough for joint replacement really does suck. As a surgeon, I have the training and education to critically evaluate the medical literature and understand its implications, as well as have high-level pros/cons discussions with my orthopedic surgeon. In the end, after 12 years of relative disability, my knee pain and disability was completely resolved and my active lifestyle restored with bilateral knee replacements.
:alcoholic::nono: STAY AWAY FROM CHEAP BEER. &YOU WILL HAVE MUCH LESS INFLAMATION. LESS NEED FOR MEDICINE AND MAGIC POTIONS .
I do this stuff for a living. Sorry it doesn’t work.
Proof:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18821708
Exercise your joints thru their full range of motion, keep your weight in check, and perhaps the most interesting data lately is the impact of diet on the affects of inflammation in joints.
From this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21953366
KEY:
Exercise improves glucose tolerance and disrupts the coexpression of proinflammatory cytokines, suggesting that increased aerobic exercise may act independently of weight loss in promoting joint health.
Be well
Jebus - that had to hurt a little…
http://pistol-training.com/articles/how-i-got-shot
The staph-E and DVT were great fun but the two bone grafts could not be beat.
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Whether or not glucosamine/chondroitin supplements work or not to reduce felt pain is not what was covered in the articles referenced above by flying hunter…those studies covered a very specific, narrow topic (for lack of a better description)–the narrowing of the joint space in osteoarthritic knees. It does not cover or discuss a reduction in inflammation in the body.
One of the studies (I think it was the first one HMAC or someone listed) indicated that G/C supplements worked as well as celecoxib (celebrex) to alleviate symptoms. A primary benefit of G/C vs celecoxib, especially in long-term usage, is the lack of gastric problems associated with G/C.
FYI, there IS a real world study done at KSU vet school, showing a profound benefit to arthritic dogs who were given fish oil supplements long term. The dogs showed significant improvement in ROM/movement and reduced pain in hip joints.
http://www.k-state.edu/media/webzine/VET_RESEARCH/osteoarthritis.html
http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/articlesView_old.asp?id=953
(above has summaries of the two studies and footnotes at bottom)
Yes, the old dog study. That one is often cited by fans of G/CS. If only dogs (or mice for that matter) walked on two legs, had similar bearing surfaces, and could talk, we might be able to draw a useful conclusion. No study on actual humans has ever come close to duplicating those results.
As to G/CS vs Celebrex, I didn’t cite that study here, but I’m assuming that we’re talking about the 2006 study reported in the New England Journal.
I’d be more inclined to refer to the 2-year 2010 study reported in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases that found that the difference in inflammatory relief wasn’t at all statistically significant.
Sawitzke AD et al. Clinical efficacy and safety of glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, their combination, celecoxib or placebo taken to treat osteoarthritis of the knee: 2-year results from GAIT. Ann Rheum Dis. 2010 Aug;69(8):1459-64. Epub 2010 Jun 4.
Having said all of that, I am all in favor of controlling pain and putting off knee replacement for as long as practical. Currently, all we have is decreasing inflammation, whether it be by fat restriction, weight loss, G/CS, steroid injection, or NSAIDs. Naturally, osteoarthritis of the knee is a dynamic process, and by that I mean that it gets worse. So, we’re talking about some point in the process where the patient finally finds that the arthritis process is so severe that they just can’t control it any more with anti-inflammatory medication. That point has a lot of variables from person to person, including lifestyle and pain tolerance.
Hmac you misunderstand me. I am not advocating G/C use by humans–though your point about the dog study forgets the fact that all our human meds went through extensive animal trials before they were ever tested on humans…and if they didn’t work in the animal models (often rats & mice), then they usually did not progress further to human studies.
I was interested to learn from one of the studies you linked, that celecoxib was no more effective at relieving symptoms than G/C or the placebo. I never once said, thought or implied that G/C or other treatments repaired joint surfaces. I personally would be interested in seeing studies of supplements such as G/C, MSM, HA etc for non-weight bearing OA symptom relief. For example, hands.
In my personal experience, over the last 2 years, despite losing approx 70#, and dramatically increasing my physical activity level, my inflammatory markers as measured by my blood work have not decreased. I am active with my hands daily, yet the joint degeneration in the thumbs has not lessened, nor has the pain in them subsided. This is irrespective to any supplements I take or NSAIDS taken.
Fortunately, the exercise and weight loss have helped me manage my knee pain to some extent. I had the medial meniscus removed surgically due to an injury. My knee pain (intermittent and not arthritic) has benefitted from my cycling regimen, though it would probably do even better if I started doing the PT exercises I remember from post-surgery…
I couldn’t even imagine. That really sucks. To be honest though, if supplements do or don’t work, I would imagine that type of injury would be beyond any abilities of glucosamine or any other supplement.
Is far as glucosamine rebuilding cartilage, I was never under the impression that was what it did. I always thought it was more for lubricating the joint.
Hmac, I also take fish oil, which is also supposed to help in lubricating joints. Would you say any of the relief I notice is more from that as opposed to the glucosamine?
I guess I really should consult actual MD’s about my knees. I’m just stubborn and hate going to the doctors. I almost regret being as active as I was when I was young. I beat my body mercilessly. Between school sports and every other extreme activities I was involved in some days I feel like a 37 year old senior citizen.