BMJ: Taking glucosamine long term may reduce cardiovascular disease risk

Adapted from BMJ18 May 19. Association of habitual glucosamine use with risk of cardiovascular disease. Ma h, Li X, Sun D et al. BMJ 2019:365:1628

Just over 466 thousand participants from the Biobank who did not have cardiovascular risk at that point completed a questionnaire about supplement use including glucosamine. Subjects were enrolled between 2006 and 2010 and were followed up in 2016.

After adjusting for age, sex, BMI, race, lifestyle factors, dietary habits, drug use and other supplement use, glucosamine was associated with a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular events. A limitation is that the association may not be causal. Perhaps those who use supplements are healthier than those who don’t.

The results they found were that there was a 15% less risk of total cardiovascular events.

There was a 22% lower risk of cardiovascular death, 16% less risk of ischaemic heart disease and a 9% lower risk of stroke.

My comment: I have been taking glucosamine regularly for the last 19 years because I have found that it completely solved the knee pain I had had for the previous five years. As I have a very strong family history of osteoarthritis of the knee and other joints I was keen to try it. Osteoarthritis is linked to inflammation in the joints, and we know that cardiovascular disease is linked to inflammation in the arterial walls and the bodies attempt to repair minute tears with cholesterol containing plaques. Thus there is a possible mechanism to explain the reduction in cardiovascular disease for those that take it. It is of course also possible that supplement takers take more exercise and I’m not sure to what extent the “lifestyle” factors were adjusted for.