Popular dietary supplements – glucosamine and chondroitin
sulfate – proved no better than placebos in treating people suffering from
osteoarthritis, a two years study published in the journal Arthritis &
Rheumatism revealed.
The study is a follow-up to a large 2006 National Institutes
of Health-funded study, which was designed to look whether supplements did a
better job than sugar pills or the arthritis pain medication Celebrex in reducing
pain in osteoarthritis patients. But the study found no improvement in those
given supplements. The study was called GAIT (Glucosamine/chondroitin Arthritis
Intervention Trial) and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in
2006.
At the end of the study, the researchers continued to watch
572 volunteers for another 18 months and found the supplements did not appear
to slow the loss of cartilage, taken either alone or together. More exactly,
arthritis worsened in 24 percent of participants taking both, similar to those
taking placebo.
“We don’t have good evidence that it (glucosamine and
chondroitin sulfate combination) slows (disease) progression,” rheumatologist
Allen Sawitzke, professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah
and head investigator, said.
The study comes like a slap in the face of supplements’
makers. The combination glucosamine – chondroitin sulfate is the sixth-top-selling
dietary supplement in the United
States, with annual sales of $831 million
last year, according to the “Nutrition Business Journal.”
However, Dr. Sawitzke said he would neither encourage nor
discourage patients from taking the supplements.
"We didn't run into safety issues, so if a patient
wants to try them, I don't see a reason to say no. But I can't recommend it;
there's no supportive data that says it works," he said.
According to the most recent figures made public by the Arthritis
Foundation, osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, currently
affects 27 million of the 46 million people in the United States with arthritis. In
addition, one in two Americans are at risk for knee osteoarthritis over their
lifetime.
Osteoarthritis
(OA), also called osteoarthroses or degenerative joint disease, is the most
common type of arthritis. OA is a chronic condition characterized by the
breakdown of the joint’s cartilage. Cartilage is the part of the joint that
cushions the ends of the bones and allows easy movement of joints. The
breakdown of cartilage causes the bones to rub against each other, causing
stiffness, pain and loss of movement in the joint. OA typically affects only
certain joints, such as the hips, hands, knees, low back and neck. After the
age of 50, women are more often affected by OA than men. There are not known
cause of OA but certain factors such as heredity, overweight, joint injury,
repeated overuse of certain joints, lack of physical activity, nerve injury and
aging increase the risk of developing OA.
Arthritis and related conditions, such as OA, cost the U.S. economy nearly $128 billion per year in medical care and indirect expenses, including lost wages and productivity.
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