Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I have been using this product for years. I don't know whether it helps or not. My original intent was to use this as a maintenance product and hopefully reduce the effects of arthritis and maintain a high level of activity going into old age. As a physician I am aware of the controversies surrounding studies of glucosamine and glucosamine - chondroitin combinations, including the NIH sponsored study that was essentially negative but that used glucosamine hydrochloride rather than glucosamine sulfate.
Those controversies aside, medicine really has nothing to offer men or women who are aging and physically active , and develop osteoarthritis. Before I became interested in glucosamine - I listened to the usual medical advice about taking acetaminophen or NSAIDs. Knowing the toxicity of NSAIDs my goal has been to avoid them. The lack of any actual reasonable arthritis treatment from general medicine has been the main impetus for using this supplement.
When I finally decided to try glucosamine, I was not aware that all supplements were not alike. I initially tried some chain pharmacy supplements and got tremendous headaches. I subsequently learned that glucosamine was extracted from shellfish. Today it is very common to look at all of the glucosamine supplements in a drugstore and find that they all have warnings for people who have shellfish allergies. This supplement is the only one that is pharmaceutical grade glucosamine and it has not caused me to get any side effects.
If you decide to try glucosamine go into it with your eyes wide open. There is minimal data to suggest that it is an effective pain reliever or that it significantly reduces joint space narrowing that is thought to correlate with advancing osteoarthritis. On the other hand organized medicine has nothing to offer and this is a good product that appears to be manufactured to high standards.
I have no conflicts of interest related to this review. I have attached a new reference that is an excellent review of the literature, controversy, and prior studies of glucosamine and chondroitin in specific forms of osteoarthritis. The article is available as a free download from the British Medical Journal.
George Dawson, MDSimon Wandel, Peter Juni, Britta Tendal, Eveline Nuesch, Peter M Villiger, Nicky J Welton, Stephan Reichenbach, Sven Trelle. Effects of glucosamine, chondroitin, or placebo in patients with osteoarthritis of hip or knee: network meta-analysis. BMJ 341:doi:10.1136/bmj.c4675 (Published 16 September 2010)[...]
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