• Home
• Products
• Contact Us

Glucosamine Sulfate - capsules

Product Narrative, T. S. Fox, Ph.D.

Glucosamine sulfate is the preferred form of glucosamine for providing cartilage repair material for osteoarthritis recovery.

I, personally, have successfully used Rimadyl (225 mg. daily), Glucosamine Sulfate for Animals (two grams twice daily) and Liver Health for Animals (0.750 grams twice daily) to counter severe osteoarthritis in 65 to 85 lb. dogs. Rimadyl is discontinued after three weeks and the glucosamine sulfate decreased to 1 gram daily after six weeks. The Milk Thistle - 6% silymarin - and the glucosamine sulfate are continued as geriatric supplements.

Glucosamine sulfate has a mildly objectionable taste that may be masked with a good tasting carrier such as ground meat.

Glucosamine is contraindicated for patients with diabetes.

Discussion

Glucosamine

Glucosamine is not a botanical. It is a natural product and is clearly a medicine of importance in veterinary medicine.

There are a lot of concoctions on the market. There always is someone who will come up with some farce and put enough hype in the air to sell it to someone.

• Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM)
• Chondroitin Sulfate
• Glucosamine HCl
• N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (NAG)
• Mixtures of these.

All of these are inferior to unadulterated glucosamine sulfate.

The facts are:

• Chondroitin sulfate is a huge molecule, molecular weight is approximately 50,000. Its bio-availability is near zero, no more than 13% by the most favorable report.
• Glucosamine bio-availability is 90% to 98%.
• Chondroitin sulfate is expensive.
• Glucosamine HCL is moderately effective but is not as bio-available as glucosamine sulfate and it is more expensive.
• There is no, absolutely no, convincing evidence that MSM is effective.
• It appears that MSM is a catchy name that has gained a following.
• N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (NAG) has no advantage over glucosamine.
• The mixtures of these things are only mixtures of things that are expensive, don’t work well and if mixed with glucosamine sulfate make it more expensive and the efficacy of the mixtures is less than that of glucosamine sulfate alone.
• Glucosamine sulfate is the preferred form and is the least expensive.

Glucosamine is not a complex molecule.

C₆ONH₂(OH)₄

It is manufactured in the body and it stimulates the synthesis of glycoaminoglycans (GAG). It also potentiates the incorporation of sulfur into cartilage. This is one of the reasons glucosamine sulfate is the preferred form of glucosamine.

There are over 300 studies on glucosamine sulfate and few on MSM, NAG and GHCl. Those that do exist are negative or published, largely unrefereed by those wishing to sell their products.

Some authors are so down on everything but glucosamine sulfate that they deny the GHCl has any merit whatsoever. From the literature and personal experience with horses and dogs, it is believed that glucosamine sulfate is clearly the star and other concoctions are just that -- concoctions. There is however merit to glucosamine-HCl.

Glucosamine sulfate is an anti-inflammatory alternative to NSAIDS, aspirin, licorice, etc. Licorice used with glucosamine sulfate for arthritis is effective. Glucosamine sulfate works - 5 to 10 days and results are apparent.