Study finds that Glucosamine may reduce all-cause mortality

[RAE]

Recent study on glucosamine, the supplement that some people take for relief of joint pain. The jury is still out on whether it works for joint pain, but interestingly enough, the researchers found that regular use may reduce all-cause mortality. From the Conclusions:


"Regular glucosamine supplementation was associated with lower mortality due to all causes, cancer, CVD, respiratory and digestive diseases."


https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/6/829.full

 

[Time2]

Recent study on glucosamine, the supplement that some people take for relief of joint pain. The jury is still out on whether it works for joint pain, but interestingly enough, the researchers found that regular use may reduce all-cause mortality. From the Conclusions:


"Regular glucosamine supplementation was associated with lower mortality due to all causes, cancer, CVD, respiratory and digestive diseases."


https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/6/829.full

I would hope the harm reduction is as simple as taking a pill.
But, how did the study discount the effect that the control, people that didn't take Glucosamine, vs the people that took Glucosamine (19.2%), just didn't concern themselves with doing things to improve their health. In other words, how do we know that the control just took less care with their health.

 

[RAE]

I would hope the harm reduction is as simple as taking a pill.
But, how did the study discount the effect that the control, people that didn't take Glucosamine, vs the people that took Glucosamine (19.2%), just didn't concern themselves with doing things to improve their health. In other words, how do we know that the control just took less care with their health.

The study did include controls for other factors - here are the ones they looked at:

"Results were adjusted for age, sex, Townsend Deprivation Index, ethnicity, education, household income, body mass index, fruit consumption, vegetable consumption, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, digestive disease, arthritis, dementia, depression, longstanding illness, statin use, chondroitin use, aspirin use, non-aspirin non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug use, vitamin supplementation and mineral and other dietary supplementation."

and this is from the Results/Discussion:

"In this large population-based cohort study involving 495,077 individuals, we found that regular glucosamine use was significantly associated with a 15% lower risk of total mortality and 18% for CVD mortality; 6% for cancer mortality; 27% for respiratory mortality and 26% for digestive mortality. These associations were independent of other potential confounders, including sociodemographic factors, lifestyle behaviours, health status, drug use and other supplements use."

By the way, I don't take from this study that using glucosamine (or any supplement) will take the place of other good health habits, including exercise and a healthy diet. I don't think the researchers are claiming that either. But it's still of interest (to me, anyway) that they found such a large reduction in all-cause mortality.

 

[braumeister]

DW has taken it for many years and thinks it helps her arthritis. I don't know of any real scientific results that indicate that, but there is a huge amount of anecdotal reporting to that effect. I never thought it was worthwhile, but when I saw this study I decided it may not be so useless after all!

 

[VanWinkle]

I have taken it for 8-10 years for shoulder joint pain. I also am not sure it has any effect on the joints other than a placebo. I am now happy that it may have other benefits.

 

[Letj]

Wondering if the vitamin industry funded this study.

 

[2017ish]

DW has taken it for many years and thinks it helps her arthritis. I don't know of any real scientific results that indicate that, but there is a huge amount of anecdotal reporting to that effect. I never thought it was worthwhile, but when I saw this study I decided it may not be so useless after all!

DW started taking it for her arthritis when she was still practicing OBG. Read the studies that, statistically, it didn't work. Dropped it, experienced regression, resumed and condition improved. Anecdotal/placebo? Maybe, but she won't go off of it again.

Will pass the study along to her.

 

[Buckeye]

I regularly take glucosamine with MSM. I like it because it makes my skin soft, especially the skin on my elbows. It also cured a very painful injury I had in my foot.

About 30 years ago, a doctor told me he had taken a glucosamine and chondroitin supplement to cure some issues he was having in the joints in his fingers/hands. He said he had collagen regrowth but that is was very disorganized and made things worse. He recommended to take only glucosamine with MSM to get organized regrowth. I took the glucosamine/MSM supplement to cure the injury in the ball of my foot I had had for 2 years (that was painful when walking or standing) that a sports medicine ortho surgeon said would require surgery to resolve. After my foot was fixed, I was a believer in the healing powers of glucosamine with MSM.

 

[6miths]

There is a 'study' like this for almost every supplement on the market. Even in this one the Absolute Risk Reduction is tiny so the NNT is huge. Almost every supplement that has been subjected to rigorous RCT evaluation has been shown to be at best useless and in some cases harmful.

 

[DrRoy]

I took it for a number of years after diagnosed with arthritis in my back. I read at some point that it was not found to help that much in studies. I stopped taking it a few years ago and have not seen any difference with my back.

 

[erkevin]

"may" and "associated with"
These two words typically mean a correlation, not causation.

 

[atmsmshr]

I have been taking glucosamine / chondroitin for over 15 years. A few times early on, stopped taking a 1 a day supplement and felt it in my joints. Takes about 3 weeks to see any positive effect.

The good news: A potential unintended benefit for inflammation and disease reduction.

The bad news: Looks like I have to take up smoking to get the full benefit.

The inverse associations of glucosamine use with all-cause mortality seemed to be somewhat stronger among current than non-current smokers (p for interaction=0.00080).

 

[Lakedog]

No experience with humans, but it was very beneficial for my previous lab. At age 13 he got to where he could not stand from a sitting position at times. After being on a high dose glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM supplement (Cosequin DS) for three weeks, he was moving around like a much younger dog. I kept him on a rather high dose for the rest of his life -- he made it to 15.5 years and was very active right up to the end.

 

[walkinwood]

Wondering if the vitamin industry funded this study.

Doesn't take much to find out - just scan the article

Funding This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973109), the Project Supported by Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2019), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC2000400), the Construction of High-level University of Guangdong (G619339521 and G618339167) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute on Ageing (NIA) of USA (P30-AG028716).


Disclaimer The funders played no role in the study design or implementation; data collection, management, analysis or interpretation; manuscript preparation, review or approval or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.


Competing interests None declared.