Talk:Glucosamine/Archive 1

Veterinary Uses

Feline Arthritis

TRY TO AVOID

• Feline arthritis is painful for both the cat and cat owner and very difficult to manage (more difficult than hyperthyroidism). Vets may resort to treatment by steroidal medication first. However, side effects could include heart failure leading to pulmonary edema or respiratory failure and eventual death of the cat (especially cats with pre-existing conditions of the heart and kidney). Special care should be taken before a vet suggests steroidal treatment for a cat with hyperthyroidism. Other consequences may include feline fasting which deprives the cat necessary nutrients to sustain life (resulting in liver failure as well). Prolonged condition makes it difficult for the cat to retain food and water (as repeated vomiting becomes lethal to the cat). One course of action if the cat is obviously suffering would be animal euthanasia.

• aspirin, tylenol, or ibuprofen (spelling again) --- a Cat can NOT metabolize these over the counter drugs and therefore are considered Poisons (very bad)!

External links

I have [temporarily] removed the link to The Arthritis & Glucosamine Information Center in accordance with the site's Terms of Use:

2. Links. You may not establish a link to this site without the express written consent of The Arthritis & Glucosamine Information Center…

— 203.173.59.206 06:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

GAIT results in

And they show a null result for pain relief Ff123 17:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Pharmacology

"In fact, there is no evidence that orally administered glucosamine reaches the target cartilage."

There are several studies on glucosamine's pharmacology -- please clarify what the reference here is. Laverty et al. measure oral glucosamine reaching the synovial fluid of a horse at around 5 micromolar, which is quite low for a monosaccharide but present nonetheless. Prithason 01:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Usage

"Glucosamine contains an amino group that is positively charged at physiological pH." This sentence doesn't appear to make sense. Has it being accidently edited to read like this? Shot info 06:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, a company by the name of The Elations Company is marketing a new drink called "Elations: Healthier Joints." The drink's marketing prominently advertises that the drink contains glucosamine (it's on the front of the bottle's label twice), and the drink is marketed as a "glucosamine/chondroitin supplement" (on the label). It could reasonably be deduced that The Elations Company, formerly owned by Proctor and Gamble (http://www.bizlex.com/story.php?id=69) has an interest in this Wikipedia article. According to the same article, P&G receives royalties on the sales of the Elations drink. Peytons (talk) 17:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I read this article to find out more about the use of oral Glucosamine for joint repair after distance running, but unfortunately it seems to relate almost exclusively to arthritis. I am in no way qualified to add this kind of detail, but it would be great to see some reliable, unbiased information on this type of use and also any studies which have been conducted around it. Some sources of reference as follows:

Runner's world article on Glucosamine: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?uan=271 Realbuzz article on Glucosamine: http://www.realbuzz.com/en-gb/The_benefits_of_glucosamine/index?pageID=261 Maximuscle (popular UK brand) supplement containing glucosamine: http://www.maximuscle.com/achefree --Ravendarque (talk) 09:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm a massage therapist who specializes in trigger points. Briefly, trigger points are also called "painful points" or "Yipe points". They are contraction knots in muscles that pull on tendons at the ends of muscles that attach to joints and are the cause of almost all the joint pain I treat ...rotator cuff problems, knee joint pain, pain in fingers and wrists, lower back pain, etc., etc., and more etcs. Trigger points ofter "refer" pain, i.e., a trigger point in the extensor digitorum muscle(upper forearm) has tendons that go to the fingers and the referred pain is felt there (medical doctors call this 'arthritis'). If the runner (above) has deep knee pain, there may be trigger points in the rectus femoris or vastus medialis muscles --- painful points an inch or two above the knee and lateral or medial a bit from the center line. There are also several other upper leg trigger points that may refer the inner knee pain.

Altho the pain is felt in joints, the pain is caused in muscles that directly or indirectly connect to the joints. The best, simplest, easiest to understand, very technically correct reference is The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, A Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief, by Clair and Amber Davies (both are Certified Massage Therapists). It is available on-line for $20 or less.

Having said that, I am not interested in the existence (or lack thereof)of effect in joints. I want to know what effect do the various glucosamines and chondroitin have on muscles, muscle fibers, muscle fascia and synovial fluid that allows muscle fibers to move frictionlessly. And therefore, what is the effect on trigger points?

thanks, thetravelingmasseurThetravelingmasseur (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on Trigger points that you might want to see. IIRC it cites Davies & Davies.LeadSongDog come howl 19:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

relocating comment from article pg

Please be aware; Glucosamine [3416-24-8] Elected by the National Cancer Institute More research needed in Widespread long-term use as a dietary supplement and inadequate data to assess safety Possible: -Chronic toxicity/ carcinogenicity -Carcinogenicity of chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine combined 66.65.180.229 04:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)Virginia Philips

To spare Hagermanbot a trip: This was moved by: Figma 06:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Side effects

Is there any dietary uptake limit on consuming glucosamine? Is there any negative health effects associated with excessive intake of it? Thanks! Budiaman (talk) 02:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

=

I think that we should note the following: It is noticeable, at least in the UK, that all glucosamine products derived from crustacean shells have a clear health warning that the product is not to be used if one suffers from shellfish allergies. Bonnyjars (talk) 20:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I added reference to the warning. Jytdog (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Citation format

Is there any reason why these citations use the author's name in the text, and the full citation at the bottom, rather than numbered footnotes in JAMA style used on most of the other medical articles? Nbauman

I put the article's references in a more common format. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:Featured article criteria 2c calls for "consistent citation format". My changes towards that end have, in part, just been reverted following a lengthy discussion on my talkpage with the estimable user:Nutriveg. What do the other editors here think about the matter? Should we intermix {{cite pmid}} with {{cite journal}}? LeadSongDog come howl 05:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Image issue: anomers

The stick-figure and the 3D model are of different anomers. Would be better to be consistent here. DMacks (talk) 07:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Bias

There's quite a heavy baias here towards Glucosamine. Evidence is rather controversial, and heavily muddied by pharmaceutical company involvement. 128.250.5.245 (talk) 05:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

---

---

And here I was thinking it was biased against glucosamine / chondroitin, especially in the section discussing the results of the 2006 NEJM study. If you read that particular NEJM article, you may notice that the authors seem to bend over backwards, trying to explain away their results showing no difference between celecoxib (Celebrex, Pfizer) and placebo. While at the same time, they do their best to minimize the real and significant improvement in the glucosamine/chondroitin (moderate-severe) subgroup. That's no surprise once you read the disclaimer section: SEVEN of the authors are on Pfizer's payroll! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markj99 (talk • contribs) 08:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Personal speculation in the Allergy section

The whole second paragraph of the Allergy section sounds like personal speculation. I am tempted to entirely delete it.--Ericjs (talk) 01:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Health effects

In the above section it says "A Cochrane 2005 meta-analysis of glucosamine for osteoarthritis found that only "Rotta" preparations (including older studies) found beneficial effects for pain and functional impairment." The sentence doesn't make sense as "found" is used twice, and presumably it's the meta-analysis that includes older studies, not the Rotta preparations. If that's the case the sentence should read something like "A Cochrane 2005 meta-analysis of glucosamine for osteoarthritis (including older studies) found that only "Rotta" preparations showed beneficial effects for pain and functional impairment" Could someone with access to the reference correct this? Richerman (talk) 23:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I drafted that sentence. Essentially you're saying the second use of "found" should be "showed". Your suggested correction would not change the meaning I think - I would say that it could even qualify as a WP:MINOR edit. You need to be bold. You could have glanced at the abstract for support for this change. You could also modify it so that "A Cochrane 2005 meta-analysis which included older studies...", or even remove the mention of older studies since their inclusion should go without saying. Anyway, I think you should fix this to practice being bold. No offense, but this change did not require a new discussion section, and trivial discussion section can make it harder stay informed on important discussion sections. II | (t - c) 20:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

No offence? - I think you would be wise to check out other editors' contribution histories before repling to a polite question in such a sanctimonious manner. Obviously if you hadn't mangled the grammar in the sentence in the first place I would have understood what it meant - but as it wasn't clear, and I'm no expert in this subject, I thought I should check. You will find that I did make some other changes where I was sure of what I was doing. I'm sorry to waste your precious time, but before you start lecturing others on being bold and what is a "trivial" question to ask on a talk page, maybe you should think about finding out how to construct a sentence that makes sense and is grammatically correct. Actually, I have a suggestion for you - clear up your own mess and maybe you'll get some practice at how to write good English. Richerman (talk) 00:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

comment on opening paragraphs

Regarding chitin's presence in "...cell walls in fungi and many higher organisms." I'm wondering what higher organisms, since animals do not have cell walls and plants' cell walls aren't chitin.

See chitin.LeadSongDog come howl 17:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

>>>comment on the sematics argument at the bottom of the article<<< Good God, folks, who cares about hopw many "founds" are used in a sentence? I want to know how glucosamine works and if it affects the sugar restrictions or biases in diabetics. Can anyone answer that? 76.123.215.57 (talk) 14:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

what was found by Rotta preparations

There's a sentence that seems very important, but errors and lack of information make it unreadable and ambiguous:

A Cochrane 2005 meta-analysis of glucosamine for osteoarthritis found that only "Rotta" preparations (including older studies) found beneficial effects for pain and functional impairment.

Broken grammar reveals one mistake: "preparations" can't "find" things. Should this say that studies using Rotta preparations found benefits? Or should it say that studies carried out by Rotta found benefits?

Another problem: what's Rotta? Is it the company, Rottapharm (which holds key patents on glucosamine, according to information lower down in the article)? I guess it is, but I don't want to make such a claim based on a guess. Gronky (talk) 11:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

As far as grammar: be bold. As for the other comment, yes, we're talking about Rottapharm's preparations. Did you glance at the cited URL, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15846645? It uses "Rotta preparation" at least 3 times. II | (t - c) 03:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Properties

The pKa data for this chemical appears incorrect. A pKa of 12 is a strong base, exceeding Tris and Aniline in basicity. Another source on the web has listed the pKa near neutral at 6.9. If the body is at pH 7.4, almost 100% of this chemical would be positively charged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philconnors (talk • contribs) 21:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

What does this sentence mean?

Under Evaluation of health benefits it says "in vitro analysis of glucosamine has revealed that glucosamine inhibits cartilage cell characteristics." Can someone explain what that is supposed to mean? What characteristics are being inhibited" Richerman (talk) 22:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Language used is NPOV on side effects

Why were Glucosamine's potential side effects listed as "dangers" rather than side-effects? This is a loaded term which wouldn't be applied to a typical medicine or drug. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.28.24.170 (talk) 16:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The section mainly describes negative effects, to complement the previous section which describes positive health effects, but I agree that "dangers" is a loaded term. I have changed the section title to "Adverse effects" which I think adequately reflects the content of the section without being too loaded. -- Ed (Edgar181) 16:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Update needed

The "Evaluation for health effects" section is badly outdated, per wp:MEDDATE. It was tagged to identify this, and with a suggested source PMID for an update. Other recent wp:MEDRS sources are PMID 22461188 (PMC 3456914), PMID 22521757, and PMID 22632689. Please do not remove the tag until this problem is addressed. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Apologies on that then. I noticed the referenced PMID had already been integrated into the body of the section so thought it was an oversight that the tag was still there. Did not know there were other PMIDs associated. Liberato (talk) 17:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Glucosamine improves joint mobility for 1 in 5 patients with osteoarthritis

On the off chance that anyone around here is interested:

http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7427/0.10

POEM

Glucosamine improves joint mobility for 1 in 5 patients with osteoarthritis

BMJ 2003; 327 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7427.0-i (Published 4 December 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;327:0.10

Question Is either glucosamine or chondroitin effective in decreasing symptoms of osteoarthritis?

Synopsis The authors of this meta-analysis searched for all randomised, placebo controlled, clinical trials of either glucosamine or chondroitin for hip or knee arthritis. They did a thorough search of several databases and citation lists of retrieved articles and contacted pharmaceutical companies. They winnowed the 500 initially identified studies to 15 that met their inclusion criteria. These studies enrolled 1775 patients. Both drugs produced a pronounced effect on symptoms as identified by a visual analogue scale (effect size 0.49; 95% confidence interval 0.31 to 0.67) and the Western Ontario McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index, a commonly used measure of pain and physical functioning (0.3; 0.11 to 0.49). Joint mobility also improved markedly (0.59; 0.25 to 0.92) with one person responding for every five patients treated (number needed to treat = 4.9). Adverse effect rates were similar for the drugs and placebo.

Bottom line Glucosamine and chondroitin produce a significant and similar effect on symptoms of osteoarthritis, will improve joint mobility for 1 in 5 patients, and also may slow narrowing of joint spaces. Onset of action is several weeks.

Level of evidence 1a (see www.infopoems.com/resources/levels.html); systematic reviews (with homogeneity) of randomised controlled trials.

Richy F, Bruyere O, Ethgen O, et al. Structural and symptomatic efficacy of glucosamine and chondroitin in knee osteoarthritis. A comprehensive meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med 2003;163: 1514-2

© infoPOEMs 1992-2003 www.infoPOEMs.com/informationmastery.cfm Footnotes

↵* Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters. See editorial (BMJ 2002;325: 983 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.56.234 (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Moved content to Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin

Hello! I just moved the content about osteoarthritis research to Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin. Please go to the talk page of that article for an explanation of why I did this. In short, the information was confusing, beyond the scope of what Wikipedia health articles should cover, and being independently developed in multiple places on Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Love it!!!! Nice to way to solve the thicket of multiple and often conflicting articles covering the same topic. Great. Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

US Bias

From the medical uses section: "Oral glucosamine is a dietary supplement and is not a pharmaceutical drug. It is illegal in the US to market any dietary supplement as a treatment for any disease or condition.[4]" I understand why this information was included, but why is it included in the first paragraph of the body in isolation from glucosamine's legal/medicinal status in the rest of the English language diaspora? I fear yet more US bias on "English" language wikipedia. 139.218.177.138 (talk) 07:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Could be improved: In the United States, oral glucosamine is a dietary supplement and is not a pharmaceutical drug. It is a prescription drug in some other countries. It is illegal in the U.S. to market any dietary supplement as a treatment for any disease or condition, but it is legal to market a dietary supplement as long as the label does not make a disease claim and also includes the FDA disclaimer statement. For glucosamine, "Helps maintain healthy joints" allowed, while "Restores joint cartilage and cures osteoarthritis" not.David notMD (talk) 11:44, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Newer study - could ref

Wondering why this study has not been included which proves efficacy with osteoarthritis in the knee, yet an outdated 2013 study is cited.

77.250.66.44 (talk) 15:23, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Melting point

According to DrugBank, Thieme Römpp and the Merk Index, the predicted melting point is at 88 °C (for α) and 110 °C (for β, decomposition). Does somebody know which the source of the melting point, given in this article, is? I think we should either remove the melting point or add, that the data is probably not valuable. Philrei (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)