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Here's my thoughts on this. Note, I'm an engineer, not a biologist, so take my opinions with as much salt as you want.I've been a skeptic of Glucosamine for many years now. It started out with me working in a pet shop, and glucosamine is commonly added to dog food along with some other things and marketed as a "Joint Health" formula. You can also buy pure glucosamine in powder form, and this is marketed as being good for the joints. One day a lady came in and bought a can of it, and said something that made me really curious and started me off on some research. In Norway where I live, you can't buy Glucosamine for human consumption anymore, but it's legal to sell for dogs. This lady would buy it for her own consumption at the pet-store because she was convinced it made her better.At this point I had to figure out just what the heck this stuff was, how it worked, and what the science said.Turns out you could buy it back when it was first introduced, but back then the only studies on it were studies conducted by the companies that produced it. (There's ton's of good information out there about how these companies can take just about any substance and make it look good in a study by cherry picking their results)After a while, some independent studies came out that showed the stuff had the same effect as and was no better than placebo (Which of course means that it has SOME effect... but so would just about anything else as long as you actually think you're taking it to make your joints feel better)At this point, the authorities which regulate drugs in Norway concluded that the whole thing was a scam and decided to have it removed from market until someone could prove that it actually worked. I don't always agree with the regulating authorities in Norway by the way, mostly because there's a bunch of stuff you can't buy here that is considered dangerous. Like Ephedera.There is a big problem with the way the studies we have are done.The raw data you get from them is really dodgy. You give group A a placebo and say that it's a joint-drug, then you give group B Glucosamine and tell them it's a joint-drug. You then ask the people in both groups over a period of time to describe if they feel any improvement or not, usually on a scale of 0 to 10 or something so you can make it look like an actual statistic. And in the end you see how glucosamine compared to the placebo in the subjective opinion of the people you gave it to. So far the evidence is unconvincing in my opinion. "Since glucosamine is a precursor for glycosaminoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans are a major component of joint cartilage, supplemental glucosamine may help to prevent cartilage degeneration and treat arthritis. Its use as a therapy for osteoarthritis appears safe, but there is conflicting evidence as to its effectiveness. A systematic review found that effect sizes from glucosamine supplementation were highest in industry-funded studies and lowest in independent studies. [13] A Cochrane 2005 meta-analysis of glucosamine therapy for osteoarthritis found that only the Rotta brand of glucosamine appeared to be superior to placebo in the treatment of pain and functional impairment resulting from symptomatic osteoarthritis.[14] However, when the low quality and older studies were discounted and only those using the highest-quality design were considered, there was no effect above placebo.[15]" From Wikipedia.The only reason people buy into this product is that humans are easy to fool, and most people won't go look up a bunch of studies before they try some drug that they hope will magically fix their problems. And because of the placebo effect, some people actually get better, but refuse to believe that it's not really because the drug works in any directly observable way, it's just because of their own ability to fool themselves.The biggest problem I have with the stuff is the chain of logic. Here's how it goes:Glucosamine is a precursor to a component of cartilage but the body has to make it, so if you supplement with it the body will have an excess since it doesn't have to synthesize the Glucosamine it needs to grow cartilage. This will make cartilage grow faster, and therefore help with joint pain caused by damaged cartilage.There's so many things to comment on here.1: Not all joint pain come from damaged cartilage. There could be inflammation or damage to other tissues that cause it.2: Cartilage grows very slowly for a couple of reasons, one of them being poor blood flow to the tissue. Usually you just get scar tissue and a gradual decline over time. This is called aging. The best results in healing cartilage has been seen in experimental treatments where they surgically insert a bio-engineered scaffolding that mimics the structure of cartilage, and coating it with stem cells harvested from the patient. But this technique still isn't healing old tissue... It's growing NEW tissue which is different, most importantly since you need stem cells to do it. In all other cases, it seems you basically can't fix cartilage.I recommend watching this video, it show some really impressive joint-fixes. A good demonstration of why we should remove all bans on stem-cell research.http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kevin_stone_the_bio_future_of_joint_replacement.html3: The bioavailability of glucosamine has not been proven. Meaning, there's never been a study proving that eating it will actually cause there to me more of the stuff available in the joint tissue.( You'd think this was the very first thing you'd look at -___-) There are some studies being done on this now so we'll have answers on this soon. For now it's not looking promising. Even if it is absorbed by the digestive system and you can raise serum levels of it, that doesn't mean that it's gonna reach the joint before it's broken down because of the poor blood flow to cartilage.4: There is no biological/biochemical mechanism that we know of that will make cartilage grow faster because of a higher concentration of Glucosamine in the tissue. So if they prove that the stuff is bioavailable, they still have to prove that it does something noteworthy when it's present in higher concentrations.Overall I give the whole thing a giant 'meh'I wouldn't spend money on it, that I could rather spend on proven supplements and unprocessed whole foods.
If your joins only hurt some of the time, and especially when you train a lot, it's probably not arthritis. It's just inflammation. Focus on training with good technique, eat less inflammatory foods, eat more anti-inflammatory foods, get enough water, sleep and recovery.
Ok so I've been taking the cissus for almost two weeks with a 3 day gap of none because I was on my trip to CA. Cory thank you for introducing me to it. Already feel MUCH better and I'm recovering from some insane workouts faster. Shoulder still hurts a little. it's less and less as time goes by.Foxy---- GO ONLINE AND BUY IT!!! =) you won't regret it
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yQ7u-n9iU7R910fUgcAEo5NJoUZzT3w1zLC5qYyaGZE/edit#gid=1795865688Ok so I've been taking the cissus for almost two weeks with a 3 day gap of none because I was on my trip to CA. Cory thank you for introducing me to it. Already feel MUCH better and I'm recovering from some insane workouts faster. Shoulder still hurts a little. it's less and less as time goes by.Foxy---- GO ONLINE AND BUY IT!!! =) you won't regret it
Glad it works for you, too.Cissus is just insane. One of the best supplement investments I've ever made. Still haven't met anyone who has not seen some improvement, or even complete improvement, on Cissus.Keep up with it, you do not have to cycle the herb.Cory
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