Glucosamine (Read 810 times)

IT"S AWESOME!!! I myself have used it and know alot of other people who do and love it as well!

I started using it not because of running but because of the pain I get from my back and neck problems. No it won't repair the damage but it sure makes it easier to get up in the morning!

I did go off it for awhile and the pain came back, but not as bad. I attribute that to stronger legs/better mechanics running. I've also heard that horses respond pretty well to the stuff, but I wouldn't want to be the one feeding them the pills!

I tried it once, but could not tell the difference. I did come to a point about a year and a half ago where I thought I was going to have to give up running altogether due to knee pain (ACL reconstruction of both knees). I stumbled across two supplements, bromelain and turmeric that made all the difference. I am not taking either right now, but they saved my running career (hey, it's not like I get paid or anything). Both supplements have been used by arthritic patients with some reduction of pain, I used them together to leverage the enzymatic nature of bromelain to help digest the harder to process turmeric. Seemed to work great for me. I ordered them both off an internet site. Good luck with whatever course you choose. Lynn

I've also heard that horses respond pretty well to the stuff, but I wouldn't want to be the one feeding them the pills!

Actually, horses do respond well to it. I currently have a horse with joint problems & also had one a couple of years ago with a different joint problem. Both responded quite well to joint supplements, all of which contained glucosamine, chondroitin & MSM, among other things. It comes in both a powder form & a liquid form which you mix with their feed. They eat it quite well. Funny thing is, if I try to feed it to my other horse, the one with NO joint problems, he won't eat it. He can pick through an entire bucket of grain & every last granule of that powder will be at the bottom of the bucket when he is done!! Same with the liquid supplements or the pellet style ones, if a horse's body doesn't need it, they can pick around it. I wish we could all listen to our bodies that good!!!

This is an interesting topic! I hope you'll indulge me as I describe an article I just read. Unfortunately, I can't find the article online (and I don't feel like transcribing the whole thing). If you have questions, let me know, and I'll try to give better details. The article is titled "Arthritis Fighters: Do Glucosamine & Chondroitin Work" in a newletter (Sept 2006 'Nutrition Action', Volume 33, Number 7) which is put out by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). They are a non-profit health-advocacy group and I find their analysis balanced and well referenced to legitimate scientific literature. The article focuses on treatment/prevention of osteoarthritis with these compounds, but I think conclusions are interesting. The article discusses the recent results of the Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT), launched by the NIH in 2000 because these benefits of these compounds were not clear. Basically, they compared 1,500 women and men with osteoarthritis of the knees who took a daily dose of 1) glucosamine (1500 mg), 2) chondroitin (1200 mg), 3) both, 4)Celebrex (200 mg), or 5) a placebo. After 6 months, only Celebrex was significantly better at relieving pain (vs. placebo). Glucosamine and chondroitin had no effect (vs. placebo). However, the study is still controverial because 60% of those taking the placebo experience pain relief! So either they all had no effect, or they all had some effect (but so does placebo). The article goes on to explain that, if you mess with the data long enough, you can squeeze out some apparent benefits from the supplements here and there in specific sup-groups of people (people with moderate to sever pain), but these results aren't conclusive since the study wasn't designed to study sub-groups. The article also discusses that most of the previous studies that have shown much more positive results were sponsored by the manufacturers of supplements (always a little sketchy). The article provides the following 4 points as their "bottom line": 1) Glucosamine alone and chondroitin alone don't relieve pain from osteoarthritis of the knees any better than a placebo. 2) The combo of G & C doesn't help people with mild arthritis pain. 3) The combo of G & C seems to help people with moderate to severe arthritis pain, but those results may have been entirely due to chance. 4) There's no evidence that takeing glucosamine and/or chondroitin is harmfull. As #4 infers, unlike NSAIDs and other pain killers, G & C don't appear to have nasty side effects (so far) and are reasonably inexpensive. Some of the MDs interviewed in the article say they don't reccommend G & C but, since they don't cause any harm, are inexpensive, and some people like them, they don''t tell their patients to stop taking them, either. (NSAIDs have side effects, as many of us know.) Also keep in mind, though, that there is no FDA oversight for supplements, so there's no guarantee that what's in the bottle is really what's on the label! (That's true for any supplement.) Here's a link to some info on the study: http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/gait/qa.htm

I've had a systemic form of arthritis since I was sixteen, luckily in remission for several years. I take Cosamin DS and swear by it....I started running as a form of exercise only 5 weeks ago, and I'm up to 25 miles a week. I've had several operations on each knee over the years, so this is nothing short of a miracle for me. I wouldn't even THINK of running in the past....I cycle and xc ski. So give it a try........