Claim: Chondroitin of little help for arthritis, study says
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Chondroitin sulfate
text: of 2015 the largest trial conducted with the product was the Glucosamine and Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT), a double-blind, randomized, multicenter clinical trial sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health in 1583 people with knee osteoarthritis, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of five orally administered treatments: two 250 mg capsules of glucosamine hydrochloride three times daily, two 200 mg capsules of chondroitin sulphate three times daily, two capsules of 250 mg of glucosamine hydrochloride plus 200 mg of chondroitin sulphate three times daily, 200 mg

title: Chondroitin sulfate
text: also approved and regulated as a symptomatic slow-acting drug for this disease (SYSADOA) in Europe and some other countries. It is commonly sold together with glucosamine. A 2015 Cochrane review of clinical trials found that most were of low quality, but that there was some evidence of short-term improvement in pain and few side effects; it does not appear to improve or maintain the health of affected joints. Chondroitin, along with commonly used glucosamine, should not be used to treat people who have symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee as evidence shows that these treatments fail to provide relief for that

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: found to be clinically more effective (in 25% of the patients) in treating pain than celecoxib or chondroitin and glucosamine taken individually. Due to small sample sizes in the sub-group (roughly 250 people), the researchers concluded that this needs further validation. The study also found chondroitin sulfate to have no significant effect in reducing joint swelling, effusion, or both. These results indicate that glucosamine and chondroitin do not effectively relieve pain in the overall group of osteoarthritis patients, though it may be an effective treatment for those suffering from moderate-to-severe pain. In a follow-up study, 572 patients from the GAIT

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: ways that glucosamine hydrochloride is not. The Osteoarthritis Research Society International advises arthritis sufferers to discontinue glucosamine therapy if they notice no benefit within six months and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence no longer recommends its use. Despite the difficulty in determining the efficacy of glucosamine, it remains a viable treatment option. Similar trials have been done with chondroitin. In general, the clinical trials of the mid-1990s that furnished positive results showing glucosamine efficacy were later deemed to be of poor quality due to shortcomings in their methods, including small size, short duration, poor analysis of drop-outs, and unclear

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: glucosamine be discontinued if no effect is observed after six months and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence no longer recommends its use although the Arthritis Foundation compares the effectiveness of glucosamine to traditional NSAID therapy. Despite the difficulty in determining the efficacy of glucosamine, it remains a viable treatment option according to some experts. Chondroitin is not recommended as a treatment for osteoarthritis. Prior to publication of the negative review by Reichenbach and the equivocal GAIT trial, clinical practice guidelines recommended the use of chondroitin. The OARSI (OsteoArthritis Research Society International) recommended chondroitin sulfate as the second-most-effective treatment for

title: Chondroitin
text: Chondroitin Chondroitin is a chondrin derivative. Chondroitin sulfate is a chemical that is pre-dominantly found in cartilages around joints in the body. Its uses are a variety of treatments such as HIV/AIDS, osteoporosis, heart attack, muscle soreness and bladder retention or urinary tract disease. It is a common product that is used in eye drops and cornea transplants. The uses of chondroitin is well known for osteoarthritis, where cartilage degrades the joints in the body. Chondroitin helps slow that breakdown in either by mouth where studies have shown that within six months, pain has subsided. Uses in cream have shown

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: changes to articular cartilage. One published in 2010 in the "British Medical Journal" arrived at the following conclusions:Compared with placebo, glucosamine, chondroitin, and their combination do not reduce joint pain or affect the narrowing of joint space. Health authorities and health insurers should not cover the costs of these preparations, and new prescriptions to patients who have not received treatment should be discouraged. These conclusions, however, are not shared by all researchers in the field. Specifically, the authors of the 2010 "BMJ" meta-analysis have been criticized for poor methodology by including too many dissimilar studies in their analysis. In a

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: the knee. It reported initially in 2006, with further findings in 2008 and again in 2010. This multicenter, placebo-controlled, double-blind, six-month-long trial found that glucosamine plus chondroitin had no statistically significant effect on symptoms of osteoarthritis in the osteoarthritis patients studied. The study, in addition to an inactive placebo, also included an active control, the FDA-approved prescription analgesic drug celecoxib. The researchers found that those taking the active control drug fared no better or worse than those taking glucosamine, glucosamine and chondroitin combined or the inactive placebo. However, in the moderate-to-severe pain subgroup, the combination of chondroitin and glucosamine was

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: moderate cases of osteoarthritis (although the guidelines were published in 2008, the developers closed their search date in January 2006 – prior to the GAIT trial). In 2003, the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) supported the usefulness of chondroitin sulfate in the management of knee osteoarthritis and granted the highest level of evidence, 1A, and strength of the recommendation, A, to this product. The major trial included in the two reviews above was the Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention, or GAIT Trial. GAIT was funded by the National Institutes of Health to test the effects of chondroitin and glucosamine on osteoarthritis of

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: of OA disease progression. Thus, while the researchers rightly concluded that no treatment in this study was found to produce a "a clinically important reduction" in joint space width loss none of the participants experienced clinically important progression of their disease during the study period either. In another 2-year follow-up study involving 662 patients from the GAIT trial, published in 2010, there was neither significant pain reduction nor improved function when comparing glucosamine and/or chondroitin to a placebo although the positive control also failed to perform significantly better that the placebo in this study. Glucosamine supplements are widely used for

title: Chondroitin
text: to improve dramatically, using shark cartilage to reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis. A research was conducted by both Dr. Michal and Dr. Duffy conducting a case regarding malaria in pregnant women. They wanted to see just how Plasmodium falciparum, which is a unicellular protist parasite, binds to red blood cells. In this study, these infected red blood cell parasites had an affinity for Chondroitin sulfate than other extracellular receptors. What this shows is that even thought women may have built a tolerance against malaria, they are still susceptible during the first year or two. Types include: Chondroitin Chondroitin is a

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: benefit detected for these dietary supplements, and a longer study would be required to test the efficacy of both supplements combined. Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin There is a history of clinical research done on glycosaminoglycans, especially glucosamine and chondroitin, for the treatment of arthritis. Since glucosamine is a precursor for glycosaminoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans are major components of cartilage, ingesting glucosamine might nourish joints, and thereby alleviate arthritis symptoms. Some of the evidence for the effectiveness of glucosamine is disputed. A 2008–2009 review of all known studies of glucosamine supplements for horses, for example, found that almost all studies

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: no benefit in slowing the loss of cartilage, in terms of joint space width, when compared to a placebo or celecoxib. As in the original GAIT study, this follow-up study was confounded by unexpected results that made if difficult to conclude anything definitive about the effect of glucosamine on slowing the progression of OA. Despite the fact that the glucosamine group showed less than one-tenth the joint narrowing (0.013 mm) as the placebo group (0.166 mm), none of the groups experienced joint space narrowing to the degree the researchers expected (0.4 mm) over the two-year period based on earlier studies

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: whether glucosamine sulfate, chondroitin sulfate or a combination of both are effective treatments for chronic knee pain due to osteoarthritis. 502 patients (from 605 enrolled) were followed for two years. The main outcomes were disease progression, as measured by joint space narrowing (JSN) and knee pain (VAS). The combination treatment did result in a small but statistically significant (0.1 mm) decrease in 2-year JSN compared with placebo but there was no difference in JSN between this group and the other treatment groups and no differences between any group for changes in knee pain. In summary, there was no significant symptomatic

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: 24-week, 12.5 million-dollar multicenter clinical trial (the GAIT trial) to study the effect of chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine hydrochloride, chondroitin/glucosamine in combination, and celecoxib as a treatment for knee-pain in two groups of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: Patients with "mild pain" (n=1229), and patients with "moderate to severe pain" (n=354). When the data from both groups were pooled and analyzed, there was no statistically significant difference between groups taking glucosamine HCl, chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine/chondroitin; and those taking an inactive placebo or the positive control, the prescription analgesic celecoxib. The authors of the study analyzed the moderate-to-severe pain group and

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: subsequent discussion the editors of the "BMJ" concluded that, while they still supported the overall results of the study, they no longer accepted the specific conclusions that glucosamine and chondroitin should not be recommended by health authorities or covered by health insurers, stating that these claims "were not directly supported by [the authors'] data". Nevertheless, in 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintained its position (first published in a comprehensive 2004 letter) that there is no credible scientific evidence to support the proposed health claims regarding consumption of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate and reduced risk of osteoarthritis, joint

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin There is a history of clinical research done on glycosaminoglycans, especially glucosamine and chondroitin, for the treatment of arthritis. Since glucosamine is a precursor for glycosaminoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans are major components of cartilage, ingesting glucosamine might nourish joints, and thereby alleviate arthritis symptoms. Some of the evidence for the effectiveness of glucosamine is disputed. A 2008–2009 review of all known studies of glucosamine supplements for horses, for example, found that almost all studies had failed to meet usual standards and were fatally compromised by basic errors in their execution, including failure to test whether

title: Clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin
text: either inactive placebo or celecoxib Some of the researchers' ties to Pfizer (which makes celecoxib) have brought into question the validity of the study. The lead author of the GAIT Trial, Allen D. Sawitzke, MD, expressed his disappointment with unexpectedly equivocal findings of the trial, noting in an interview with the Arthritis Foundation, that because of significant limitations, like a small sample size, the GAIT Trial likely didn’t have enough power to determine whether glucosamine and chondroitin are effective treatments for knee osteoarthritis or not. The Long-term Evaluation of Glucosamine Sulfate (LEGS) study ran between 2007 and 2011, to study

title: Osteoarthritis
text: found that while ASU might help relieve pain in the short term for some people with osteoarthritis, it does not appear to improve or maintain the health of affected joints. The review noted a high-quality two-year clinical trial comparing ASU to chondroitin, which has uncertain efficacy in osteoarthritis; the study found no difference between the two. The review also found that although ASU appears to be safe, it has not been adequately studied for its safety to be determined. Devil's claw, curcumin, phytodolor, SKI306X and s-adenosyl methionine (SAMe) may be effective in improving pain. There is tentative evidence to support

title: Chondroitin sulfate
text: three times daily, chondroitin sulfate 400 mg three times daily, the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, celecoxib 200 mg daily, or placebo) over 24 months. The primary outcome was a 20% reduction in pain over 24 months as measured by the Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). Secondary outcomes included an Outcome Measures in Rheumatology/Osteoarthritis Research Society International response and change from baseline in WOMAC pain and function. Over 2 years, none of the treatments (not even the positive control celecoxib) achieved a clinically important difference in WOMAC pain or function as compared with placebo. Adverse reactions