How Glucosamine works to relieve Joint Pain

Glucosamine is made from pulverised sea crustaceans and a lot of people are buying a lot of it. The placebo effect only lasts so long – no doubt these powders are offering genuine pain relief.

Medical opinion finds little to no benefit for glucosamine with regard to joint pain and joint degeneration, although a trial showed glucosamine had equal effectiveness to Celebrex (1). But Celebrex and other ‘non steroidal anti-inflammatories’ contribute to joint destruction because reducing inflammation weakens healing in the joint, reducing pain allows more activity thus tearing the joint down faster.

So if Glucosamine relieves joint pain it should support joint repair and healing. Can it do this?

Well, sort of…

How it works to relieve pain

Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA) is a powerful driver for the destructive inflammation involved in arthritic and other conditions. Glucosamine binds to WGA in the gut and prevents its absorption – it is carried out to be eliminated, removing this cause of inflammation from the body to relieve pain.

So different people have different results from Glucosamine, depending on how much wheat is eaten as well as the amount and type of dietary lectins overall.

A good medical experiment would be to compare Glucosamine use with the removal of WGA from the diet.

But it’s also easy to experiment on yourself.