No matter how active we are, even the fittest person can have a bad day or two, thanks to joints that make moving a knee, hip or shoulder a pain. Luckily, despite some recent conflicting reports, glucosamine researchers keep proving that this shellfish-derived supplement can be useful against arthritis.
During the American College of Rheumatology's annual scientific meeting in November 2005, two major glucosamine studies had people buzzing. First, Spanish researchers called glucosamine "the preferred symptomatic medication" for knee osteoarthritis (OA), based on a trial involving 318 patients who were randomly assigned to take 1,500mg of glucosamine daily, or 3,000mg of acetaminophen daily or just a placebo. After six months, the glucosamine users had significantly less pain in their knees than those taking either the placebo or even acetaminophen.
The other, larger study was done at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Researchers there gave one of five therapies--glucosamine, chondroitin, a combination of the two, the arthritis drug celecoxib (Celebrex) or a placebo--to 1,258 patients with knee arthritis. After six months, "We found a highly significant result favoring the combination [of glucosamine and chondroitin]," Daniel O. Clegg, MD, told the gathering of scientists. In addition, people with the most pain got the most relief: 79.2 percent of those in the highest pain group had at least a 20 percent pain reduction from taking the glucosamine/chondroitin combination. By comparison, only 54.3 percent of those taking the placebo reported any improvement in their pain at all.
So, barring any allergies to shellfish, this little wonder from the sea might be just what your knees need.
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