Tests show this supplement is all your arthritic knees need
They say the knees are the first thing to go.
And since so many people suffer from extremely painful knee arthritis, that sure looks to be the case!
Along with the hundreds of thousands in the U.S. who have total knee replacement surgery done every year, many more are held hostage by drugs — from risky OTC meds to terribly dangerous Rx ones — that they have to take daily, just to be able to function.
But now, a new study from an international group of researchers has shined a spotlight on an old standby where painful joints are concerned — none other than good old chondroitin!
Researchers have discovered that this supplement, which is typically derived from animal or fish cartilage, is just as powerful as one of the most widely prescribed Rx drugs for arthritis.
They always seem to be found together, like the Bobbsey twins — glucosamine and chondroitin!
But they don’t have to be — and for anyone struggling with the pain of knee arthritis, chondroitin may be the better choice.
Researchers from Belgium, Switzerland, and Poland put chondroitin to a head-to-head test with one of the most commonly used Rx meds for the condition, Celebrex.
As an eAlert reader, you know that we’ve talked a lot about the dangers of Celebrex — the only “COX-2 inhibitor” left on the pharmacy shelves. Its kissing cousins, Vioxx and Bextra, were taken off the market after untold numbers of patients — said to be in the tens of thousands — suffered heart attacks and strokes after taking them.
And, at the end of last year, we also told you about a so-called “safety study” that was said to exonerate Celebrex. Only it didn’t. Actually, almost 70 percent of the people in the trial didn’t even finish the study. Seriously, how could they come to any conclusions when close to three quarters of the study participants dropped out?
As far as chondroitin goes, however, the researchers concluded that not only is it extremely safe, but that the supplement was just as good as Celebrex at stopping pain and improving joint function.
While they did say that the Celebrex kicked in faster, the improvements from taking 800 mg of chondroitin daily were just as effective after several weeks. And it continued to be as good as Big Pharma’s risky med right through to the end of the entire study.
They determined that the chondroitin was so successful, it should be offered to patients with knee arthritis as a first-line treatment.
There are, however, certain circumstances in which chondroitin supplements should be avoided. One is if you have an allergy to shellfish, especially shrimp, as many are derived from fish cartilage. Another is if you have prostate cancer, as some research has found that it may help prostate-cancer cells to spread.
And that’s where glucosamine can come to the rescue.
Glucosamine, which can also be made from shellfish (so check labels carefully if you’re allergic), has been the subject of numerous studies and found to be extremely effective for the pain and stiffness of arthritis.
While these two are most often found as a team in supplements, since they work even better together, you should still be able to find either glucosamine or chondroitin by themselves.
“Chondroitin sulfate as good as widely used anti-inflammatory for knee osteoarthritis” BMJ, May 23, 2017, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com
