Many people after the age of 50 always feel that their body is not as good as before, and they are sore after a little long-term activity. Especially knees, I used to climb several floors without getting tired, but now I have to rest for half a day after climbing one or two floors, and my knees are still sore.
The same is true for the 55-year-old Uncle Zhang, who lives on the 3rd floor of a residential building without an elevator. In the past, Uncle Zhang felt easy going up and down the stairs, but in recent years, Uncle Zhang felt that his knees became more and more painful, and he often took a 10-minute rest when climbing a floor. During his physical examination last year, the doctor told him that he had osteoarthritis and needed drug treatment, moderate exercise every day, and regular check-ups.
Uncle Zhang felt that taking medicine was a waste of money, and his knee was so sore that he didn’t want to exercise. Until he saw an advertisement for Glucosamine on TV, saying it was a “magic medicine” for osteoarthritis. The advertisement also declared: “With it, you don’t need to take any medicine!”
Uncle Zhang happily bought several boxes at one time, but after he ate all the boxes of glucosamine, he didn’t take any medicine. I feel my knee pain has improved, but it is getting worse.
Is Mr. Zhang being deceived? Is the glucosamine advertised really that magical?
Is glucosamine really a chondroprotective agent?
Glucosamine, the full name of Glucosamine, is a monosaccharide that is easily soluble in water. From a chemical standpoint, glucosamine is formed by replacing a hydroxyl group on glucose with an amino group.
The connecting part between the bone and the bone is called the joint. The surface of the joint is covered with a layer of transparent material, which is the joint Cartilage. Articular cartilage has a smooth surface that allows for smoother movement between bones. In addition, the cartilage itself is elastic, which can buffer the impact and vibration generated by the connected bones during movement, and play a role in protecting the joints. However, there are no nerves and blood vessels in articular cartilage, and it can only rely on synovial fluid and arterial branches around the synovial layer to provide nutrients, and chondrocytes maintain normal metabolic functions.
Glucosamine is necessary for the synthesis of proteoglycans. In the cell matrix of human articular cartilage, Proteoglycan is one of the important components. Proteoglycan can inhibit the tensile force of collagen fibers, so that articular cartilage can absorb the impact force caused by exercise. That is to say, glucosamine has an important effect on articular cartilage.
With the increase of age, the content of glucosamine in the human body becomes less and less, which leads to the continuous aging and damage of articular cartilage. A large number of medical studies have shown that: Glucosamine has anti-inflammatory effect, can help repair and protect articular cartilage, and can also promote the growth of cartilage cells, which is very good for patients with osteoarthritis to relieve pain and improve function It can also prevent the progression of osteoarthritis. [1]
In addition to fighting osteoarthritis, glucosamine has many other benefits.
Glucosamine can not only repair damaged articular cartilage, but also promote the production of synovial fluid. The polysaccharides in glucosamine can stimulate synovial cells, produce synovial fluid, reduce wear and tear between joints, and reduce the risk of joint diseases. At the same time, the newly formed synovium will form a molecular barrier to clean up the inflammatory factors originally existing in the joint cavity and reduce the recurrence probability of joint disease.
Glucosamine exists widely in the body and can form important products such as hyaluronic acid to maintain the biological activity of the body. It can also participate in the body’s glucose metabolism, regulate the body’s immune function, and improve immunity. Especially for the elderly with low immunity, glucosamine can improve the production efficiency of protein in the body, increase the activity of immune cells, and reduce the probability of illness in the elderly.
Scientists have shown that glucosamine can improve the activity of antioxidant enzymes, has antioxidant ability, and can improve liver function. damage to protect. [2]
Many elderly people will gradually experience immobility and limb weakness as they age. This phenomenon may be caused by the bones, or it may be caused by the muscles. The water in the human body is lost over time, and the muscles also lose their elasticity and become stiff, and eventually the limbs become weak or even difficult to move.
Glucosamine contains protein sugars, which can combine with water molecules to nourish muscles and improve muscle elasticity, to make the elderly more flexible. In addition, glucosamine can eliminate inflammatory factors and avoid the accumulation of inflammatory factors, thus reducing the probability of muscle inflammation.
Since glucosamine has so many effects, can anyone supplement it? No, some people are suitable for taking glucosamine, but some people are not.
Health care product glucosamine, drug glucosamine, must be distinguished
AmmoniaSugar is divided into drug glucosamine and health product glucosamine. Strict clinical human trial research is required before drug glucosamine is released, while health product glucosamine does not require human clinical trials before it is released. That is to say, I don’t know how effective the health supplement glucosamine can be on cartilage. Therefore, if you want to supplement glucosamine, it is safer to take the drug glucosamine.
Glucosamine is acceptable for some patients with early osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease of cartilage, which is a chronic inflammation caused by various reasons such as cartilage degeneration and damage. Osteoarthritis can cause knee pain, swelling and other symptoms in patients.
Using glucosamine in combination with some daily non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can effectively relieve the pain caused by osteoarthritis, improve joint function and delay the further development of the disease .
But for patients with advanced osteoarthritis, glucosamine is not very effective. In advanced osteoarthritis, the cartilage has undergone severe and irreversible lesions. At this time, surgery is often required to replace artificial joints to eliminate pain and improve function.
In addition, for people who do not suffer from osteoarthritis, but do long-term heavy physical labor, they can lose a lot of muscle cells every day, and often suffer from low back pain. Symptoms such as muscle stiffness. For these groups, proper consumption of glucosamine is also beneficial, which can promote the repair and regeneration of bone joint cells and muscles.
When the synovial fluid in the joint cavity is reduced for various reasons, the friction between the joints will be more serious, which may eventually lead to synovia inflammation. If it is synovitis caused by joint wear, then taking glucosamine can reduce the wear and tear between the joints, thereby improving the symptoms of synovitis. It should be noted that not all synovitis is suitable for taking glucosamine.Because of the causes of synovitis, in addition to joint wear and tear, there are also trauma, infection, tuberculosis, etc.
People with O-shaped legs, X-shaped legs can also take glucosamine. These people are at a higher risk of developing articular cartilage disease because of the abnormal force on the joints due to leg shape problems when they walk. This kind of bad walking posture will degrade the articular cartilage faster than normal people. Therefore, these people can take appropriate amount of glucosamine to delay the degeneration of articular cartilage in middle-aged and old age.
For patients with mild meniscus injury, taking glucosamine combined with conservative treatment can speed up the recovery of the injury. However, for patients with severe meniscus damage, surgery is required.
As a drug or a health product, Glucosamine has its indications and contraindications. So, who is not suitable for Glucosamine?
Who eats it is useless?
Many merchants of glucosamine health products, in order to increase sales, deliberately exaggerate the effect, blowing glucosamine into a “magic medicine” for the treatment of various bone diseases. It is actually not that magical, there are many diseases, and eating glucosamine will not have any effect.
Osteoporosis doesn’t help with glucosamine. Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bone pain all over the body due to the decrease of bone tissue density due to various factors such as age and calcium deficiency. The occurrence of osteoporosis has nothing to do with articular cartilage, so eating glucosamine cannot alleviate and prevent this disease. For patients with osteoporosis, it is most important to pay attention to calcium and vitamin D supplementation, sun exposure and exercise.
It is useless to take glucosamine for femoral head necrosis. Although the femoral head is in the joint, as long as the femoral head is necrotic, the bone tissue and articular cartilage will be damaged together. Feeding cartilage with glucosamine alone is useless because the main lesions are on the bones. The treatment of femoral head necrosis is basically to improve the blood circulation near the femoral head and restore normal blood supply and metabolism.
Achilles tendonitis, frozen shoulder, cervical spondylosis, and lumbar disc herniation are all useless. Achilles tendonitis is an inflammation of the tendon that is not associated with the joints. Although anti-inflammatory is required, glucosamine does not play a significant role. For frozen shoulder, cervical spondylosis and lumbar disc herniation, eating glucosamine is also ineffective. However, it has a certain relieving effect on the symptoms of low back pain caused by vertebral cartilage lesions.
In addition, for pregnant women and liverFor patients with insufficiency, their metabolic capacity is weaker than ordinary people, and glucosamine itself has certain drug toxicity and is not suitable for taking it.
In general, for non-cartilage damage diseases, eating glucosamine often does not have a good effect, or is completely ineffective.
Suggestions
In summary, glucosamine does have a good effect on the treatment of osteoarthritis, but it is not enough to completely cure osteoarthritis by glucosamine alone. The specific dosage and method of glucosamine should be carried out under the advice of a professional doctor. When taking glucosamine, if you experience gastrointestinal discomfort or skin allergic reaction, you should stop taking it in time and communicate with your doctor.
References:
[1] “2015 White Paper on Osteoarthritis Prevention and Cognition in China” released
[2] Tang Jie. Physiological functions of glucosamine and its Maillard derivatives[D]. Ningbo University, 2012.