Glucosamine is a natural amino sugar found in cartilage and a building block of the molecules that make up cartilage. It is sold as glucosamine sulfate or glucosamine hydrochloride, alone or with chondroitin, for osteoarthritis joint pain. Whether it helps is still uncertain.
Also known as: glucosamine sulfate, glucosamine hydrochloride, glucosamine and chondroitin.
Glucosamine has no intake value or upper limit. The large US GAIT trial (Clegg 2006) used 1,500 mg of glucosamine a day for 24 weeks. NCCIH notes that some countries sell certain glucosamine preparations as prescription drugs, which may differ from US supplements. That is a study protocol, not a recommendation.
It is sold in the US as a dietary supplement. Under the 1994 dietary supplement law (DSHEA), FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are marketed, and the maker, not FDA, is responsible for safety and labeling.
NCCIH says studies of glucosamine for knee osteoarthritis have had inconsistent results, and it is still uncertain whether it helps symptoms. In the GAIT trial (Clegg 2006), 1,583 people with knee osteoarthritis took glucosamine, chondroitin, both, celecoxib or placebo for 24 weeks; glucosamine was not significantly better than placebo for pain, while celecoxib was. A 2014 analysis of 25 studies found better results with the prescription formulation of glucosamine, but NCCIH notes most of those studies had a high risk of bias, were more than 20 years old, and were funded by the drug company. For the hip, a 2-year trial of 222 people found glucosamine sulfate no better than placebo.
Guidelines disagree: the American College of Rheumatology and Arthritis Foundation, and OARSI, strongly recommend against glucosamine for knee osteoarthritis, while the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons lists it as possibly helpful and a European group (ESCEO) recommends only prescription crystalline glucosamine sulfate. Safety, per NCCIH: no major problems were found in large studies, but glucosamine may raise blood sugar in some people, glucosamine and chondroitin have been linked to a higher risk of bleeding with warfarin, and little is known about use in pregnancy or breastfeeding.
We could not find a single published half-life or time to peak for glucosamine that applies to a supplement dose, so we do not list one.
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