Home > health tips > Glucosamine and Osteoarthritis

Glucosamine and Osteoarthritis

August 25th, 2009 Kevin Richardson
Can Glucosamine Stop Arthritis Pain?

Can Glucosamine Stop Arthritis Pain?

Supplements are always a bit problematic in terms of figuring out what works and what does not, as the placebo effect is so strong if someone thinks that a substance has a health benefit. As a personal trainer over the past 18 years and working with a lot of individuals with osteoarthritis, I can say that my opinion is mixed. I do not and never do advocate any unproven supplements, but when my clients use something, I take notes to see if there is any validity to the claims.  What I saw with 8 clients using glucosamine- some of them used glucosamine with chondroitin,  all but one reported an initial sense of relief, but as the months went all of them said symptoms that they had were doing better. (Keep in mind as well that this is just what I saw, the dosages and other control issues were not in any way controlled). The problem with taking this into consideration is that they were all doing supervised resistance training, focused on helping them improve their joint mobility and increasing the strength of their surrounding muscles (6 of the clients had knee issues, 1 had elbow issues and 1 had problems with his fingers).

Was the glucosamine responsible, or was it the training? I am inclined to go with the conclusion that it was the training, as many other clients who did not use any supplements had similar relief over time.  What I recommend everyone to use as an authoritative tool in evaluating any supplement claim is the Cochrane Review. They essentially are a well established peer review group that evaluates and confirms the results of thousands of studies in many fields. Their findings were that glucosamine’s effects on humans are thus far questionable at best.

 

Hope this helps.

NOTE: If you liked my blog post and are able to forward it to a friend, or give me a Stumble thumbs up or review, Digg it and add it to a few other social networking sites or link it to your blog, I would very much appreciate it!  Thanks for reading!

Kevin Richardson is one of the most sought after personal trainers in New York City, a prominent health and fitness writer and the founder of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™- a system designed to help you do everything from lose weight to build muscle using 10 minute workouts.

  • Share/Bookmark
  1. Moiria.
    August 25th, 2009 at 11:49 | #1

    Great post, Kevin. Keep the info coming!!!

  2. Dix
    August 25th, 2009 at 11:53 | #2

    I used it fir about two year and found it made a bit of a difference

  3. Sea
    August 25th, 2009 at 11:54 | #3

    I tried it, nothing happened. I think it just doesn’t work.

  4. Jerry
    August 26th, 2009 at 10:35 | #4

    I tried glucosamine/chondroitin without much success. I’m now using a brand new product called OmniFlex that has worked very well to eliminate pain & stiffness in my knee.

  5. Sea
    August 26th, 2009 at 11:19 | #5

    Never heard of it, but besides being one of those heat type products that temp stop the pain, nothing can really make a joint disorder go away.

  6. Jerry
    August 27th, 2009 at 10:46 | #6

    I don’t know what your definition of “go away” is, but I no longer have pain or stiffness in a knee that was painful & stiff for years before I started using this product. Hard to believe, but true.

  7. black hattitude
    October 30th, 2009 at 10:08 | #7

    Hi,

    thanks for the great quality of your blog, each time i come here, i’m amazed.

    black hattitude.

  1. September 6th, 2009 at 14:54 | #1
  2. September 11th, 2009 at 16:58 | #2
  3. September 20th, 2009 at 17:02 | #3
  4. September 21st, 2009 at 11:34 | #4
  5. September 23rd, 2009 at 07:06 | #5
  6. September 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 | #6
  7. September 26th, 2009 at 14:05 | #7
  8. October 3rd, 2009 at 07:57 | #8
  9. October 3rd, 2009 at 07:57 | #9
  10. October 9th, 2009 at 17:21 | #10
  11. October 11th, 2009 at 07:41 | #11
  12. October 11th, 2009 at 07:41 | #12
  13. October 11th, 2009 at 19:26 | #13
  14. October 13th, 2009 at 04:58 | #14
  15. October 14th, 2009 at 08:41 | #15
  16. October 15th, 2009 at 04:51 | #16
  17. October 16th, 2009 at 11:20 | #17
  18. October 27th, 2009 at 20:41 | #18
  19. October 27th, 2009 at 23:07 | #19
  20. October 29th, 2009 at 23:10 | #20
  21. October 30th, 2009 at 14:46 | #21
  22. October 30th, 2009 at 22:32 | #22
  23. November 2nd, 2009 at 09:02 | #23
  24. November 2nd, 2009 at 09:17 | #24
  25. November 3rd, 2009 at 19:55 | #25
  26. November 4th, 2009 at 12:42 | #26
  27. November 8th, 2009 at 11:24 | #27
  28. November 10th, 2009 at 20:20 | #28
  29. November 10th, 2009 at 20:20 | #29
  30. November 11th, 2009 at 00:03 | #30
  31. November 13th, 2009 at 12:23 | #31
  32. November 13th, 2009 at 22:51 | #32
  33. November 14th, 2009 at 22:45 | #33
  34. November 15th, 2009 at 04:29 | #34
  35. November 20th, 2009 at 23:23 | #35
  36. November 21st, 2009 at 12:22 | #36
  37. November 23rd, 2009 at 00:56 | #37
  38. November 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 | #38
Comments are closed.