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Dr. Kim Mulvihill reporting There are surprising findings today about the most widely used dietary supplements used to treat joint pain.
Each year, a lot of Americans gulp down hundreds of millions of dollars worth of glucosamine and chondroitin, all in hopes to alleviate painful symptoms of osteoarthritis.
But a new study questions whether all this money is well spent.
Researchers studied close to sixteen-hundred patients with osteoarthritis in their knees. Patients were randomly assigned to take glucosamine, chondroitin, a combination of both, the prescription drug celebrex or a placebo pill for twenty-four weeks.
Overall the supplements either by themselves or in combination did not effectively reduce knee pain.
However, the combination of supplements appeared to be very effective in a small group of patients - those with moderate to severe knee pain.
But since this group was so small, these findings must be confirmed by another larger trial.
