Looking Deeper Into the Studies of Glucosamine & Chondroitin
Written By: New England Journal of Medicine
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Published - Jul 31, 2006
People with arthritis were left in a quandary when the painkiller Vioxx was pulled from the market in 2004 after being linked to cardiovascular woes (a risk also shown to be associated with other Cox-2 inhibitors). Many of those suffers found relief in the popular joint-support supplement glucosamine and chondroitin.
So, it's understandable if such consumers were unsettled when headlines clained that a New England Journal of Medicine study (2006;354:795-808)found these nutrients to be "ineffective"!
Looking into the study a little deeper tells something different!
The Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trail (GAIT) involed also 1,600 people with arthritic knees who were treated with one of five daily regimens:
1,500 mg of glucosamine
1,200 mg of chondroitin
the two supplements combined
200 mg of celecoxib (Celebrex, a Cox-2 inhibitor)
or a placebo
According to the study summary, the supplements (alone or in combination) did not reduce pain overall, but "may be effective in the subgroup of patients with moderate-to-severe knee pain."
It's the response of that last cluster - folks who were really hurting - that's most intriguing.
This group show a "significantly higher" response rate,
79.2% to 54.3%
than the placebo-takers.In fact, glucosamine/chondroitin was
MORE EFFECTIVE
for these individuals than the heavily hyped Celebrex.And GAIT isn't the last word on knee pain; a European study called GUIDE found that glucosame may be more effective than acetaminophen (Tylenol).
The real lesson of the NEJM study: Look beyond drug company directed and controlled media headlines to those all-important study details.