Naturally Intense High Intensity Training™ Health & Fitness Blog

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.

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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.