Walks like a duck

[drwex]

and sure as hell quacks like a duck: "Glucosamine No Remedy for Lower Back Pain, Says Study"

I know, this will completely fail to dissuade the many who swear by it, including friends of mine who are perfectly happy to claim to be "reality-based" when it comes to disagreeing with Dubya but don't find certain scientific bits of reality convenient. But I can't resist pointing this sort of thing out anyway.

Comments

[coraline]

er... i have no vested interest in either outcome, since i don't suffer from joint pain and don't take the stuff, but my experience has been that most people i know who like it a) take it in a compound with chondroitin, and b) take it for knees and ankles. these points were both pointed out in the article as not being covered by this study. so sure, "glucosamine alone doesn't seem to be effective on lower back pain" is a reasonable conclusion, but it doesn't sound like a reason to throw it out entirely yet.

You are correct

[drwex]

and I have full confidence that once we see the proper double-blind studies of its use for joint pain we'll have more evidence to work with. But as noted, the stuff is sold for back pain as well, and about 1/4th of people with chronic pain do try to use it as a remedy.

Re: You are correct

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

don't underestimate the placebo effect....

Re: You are correct

[drwex]

That's exactly my point. The stuff performs about as well as a placebo.

Re: You are correct

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

The stuff performs about as well as a placebo.

The same holds true for antidepressants as well, if I remember correctly.

Re: You are correct

[drwex]

Sort of. What I've read shows that some ADs do not outperform placebos in people with mild to moderate depression. ADs still seem to perform better for people with severe depression.

The other confounding factor here is that the placebo effect varies a lot. For one thing, there's good evidence that the placebo effect seen now is much stronger than the effect seen in the past decades when many drugs (including ADs) were approved. You can also get wildly varying placebo effects by changing something as simple as the color of the pills used, or the parts of the US or the world in which you do your study. I believe WIRED's story on this (http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all) was a good pop-lit summary.

Re: You are correct

[marius23.livejournal.com]

Actually, there is already significant evidence related to its use for treating osteoarthritis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucosamine#Clinical_studies Unfortunately, much of that evidence is conflicting. Based on the information there, I think it's probably safe to say that glucosamine sulphate (but not hydrochloride) provides some clinical benefit in treating arthritis.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

I have found the science on Glucosamine to be highly inconvenient, particularly since it seems to be working so nicely for the arthritis of our oldest rabbit. In reality the extra calories of the canned pumpkin we put it in and the extra attention he gets with his Glucosamine dose are probably responsible for his apparent reduction in arthritis symptoms. We also need to isolate him from his two younger cage mates for a few hours when we give him the stuff, or they'd gobble it up too. Funny how his apparent reduction in arthritis symptoms coincide with periods of rest from interaction with more active members of his warren...

[marius23.livejournal.com]

So why don't you keep the same routine but simply omit the glucosamine?

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

We already have a bottle of the stuff in the fridge and he seems to like the citrus flavor it adds. Since he only gets a few milliliters of the stuff at a time a single bottle can last a couple of years. The fact that he likes the flavor and will on occasion turn down the pumpkin without it is the main reason to keep using it.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd be a little glad to hear it. Since all the preparations I've ever found are prepared from shellfish, it is recommended that those of us with shellfish-death not take it. :)

[goddessfarmer.livejournal.com]

I know that n=3 is not a 'study' but - Trump horse without glucosamine/condrioton/msm supplement is and very lame horse. Ditto Pedro dog. By the veterinarian's observations. The third 'n' here is me: without the supplement I have fairly owie hips, knees, ankles and sometimes shoulders when I first wake up, on it, I feel good and think I don't need it, until I stop and then a couple of weeks later I'm all owie again. Mind, not all brands and ratios of this mixture are the same. I see a LOT of brand/mix variation in the supplements available for the horses, and some work, but some don't. That's over several horses each one testing each product for at least 2 months over 15 years of observation.