Safe but useless for knee arthritis: glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, and celecoxib
Five articles on PainSci cite Sawitzke 2010: 1. The Complete Guide to IT Band Syndrome 2. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 3. The Complete Guide to Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome 4. The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks 5. Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements for Pain & Healing
PainSci commentary on Sawitzke 2010: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
Even though knee osteoarthritis makes many lives miserable, long-term studies of treatment options are surprisingly few. This badly needed and good quality experiment compared the efficacy and safety of the two most popular supplements for pain — glucosamine, chrondroitin sulphate — as well as the painkiller celecoxib. They were pitted against each other, a supplement combination, and a placebo, in several hundred patients for two years (valuable long-term data that didn’t really exist before).
Alas, none of the treatments worked — less than 2% of patients enjoyed even a 20% improvement. The study authors conclude: “no treatment achieved a clinically important difference in … pain or function as compared with placebo.” As well, adverse reactions were similar in all groups; serious adverse reactions were rare for all treatments. This adds considerable weight to the already substantial evidence that most popular supplements are totally bogus.
But safe! “All of the tested therapies appeared to be generally safe and well tolerated over a two-year period.”
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a major cause of pain and functional limitation in older adults, yet longer-term studies of medical treatment of OA are limited.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate (CS), alone or in combination, as well as celecoxib and placebo on painful knee OA over 2 years.
METHODS: A 24-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, conducted at nine sites in the US ancillary to the Glucosamine/chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial, enrolled 662 patients with knee OA who satisfied radiographic criteria (Kellgren/Lawrence grade 2 or 3 changes and baseline joint space width of at least 2 mm). This subset continued to receive their randomised treatment: glucosamine 500 mg three times daily, CS 400 mg three times daily, the combination of glucosamine and CS, celecoxib 200 mg daily, or placebo over 24 months. The primary outcome was a 20% reduction in Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain over 24 months. Secondary outcomes included an Outcome Measures in Rheumatology/Osteoarthritis Research Society International response and change from baseline in WOMAC pain and function.
RESULTS: Compared with placebo, the odds of achieving a 20% reduction in WOMAC pain were celecoxib: 1.21, glucosamine: 1.16, combination glucosamine/CS: 0.83 and CS alone: 0.69, and were not statistically significant.
CONCLUSIONS: Over 2 years, no treatment achieved a clinically important difference in WOMAC pain or function as compared with placebo. However, glucosamine and celecoxib showed beneficial but not significant trends. Adverse reactions were similar among treatment groups and serious adverse events were rare for all treatments.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.
- Inciting events associated with lumbar disc herniation. Suri 2010 Spine J.
- Prediction of an extruded fragment in lumbar disc patients from clinical presentations. Pople 1994 Spine (Phila Pa 1976).
- Characteristics of patients with low back and leg pain seeking treatment in primary care: baseline results from the ATLAS cohort study. Konstantinou 2015 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Kuyken 2022 Evid Based Ment Health.