Investigative Analyisis

Glucosamine: From Cam to Mainstream?

April 2004

Will an all-natural joint health supplement be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment? The answer to this question may be not so much a matter of "if" but of "when." For many years, glucosamine, a natural dietary supplement derived from the exoskeletons of shellfish, has been highly popular among natural health enthusiasts and practitioners of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) as a way to promote joint health and mobility. Yet, the mainstream medical establishment has been reluctant to recommend glucosamine supplementation. Is that all about to change? The answer appears to be a qualified "yes," as a body of scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of glucosamine supplementation continues to grow.

For more than 20 years, medical researchers have been studying the potential of glucosamine as a natural means of promoting and maintaining healthy joint function, and the research results have been overwhelmingly positive. Most recently, the results of two three-year placebo-controlled trials showing the effectiveness of glucosamine were published in the March/April issue of Menopause. These studies, which involved 414 subjects (319 of whom were post-menopausal women), found that subjects given placebo had a narrowing of the joint space in the knee, but those who received glucosamine sulfate did not. The glucosamine sulfate group also showed improvement in joint function, while there was a trend for worsening in the placebo group.

These results of these latest studies are consistent with those of many previous clinical trials that have shown glucosamine supplementation to be beneficial for joint health. So why aren't more doctors recommending glucosamine to their patients? The answer to this question is that more and more of them are. While some "silver bullet" discoveries (like penicillin) are quickly adopted by the medical establishment, other less dramatic discoveries take longer to gain acceptance. This appears to be the case with glucosamine and joint health. With each new published study demonstrating the benefits of glucosamine, more doctors will become convinced of its value. As the body of evidence keeps growing, so will the number of physicians' endorsements, until eventually glucosamine supplementation becomes part of mainstream medical practice. This process is extremely slow and is likely to take several years (in fact, it already has), but fortunately you don't have to wait that long to make glucosamine part of your joint maintenance regimen.

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