Compound
glucosamine
Glucosamine, the amino sugar, as given in trials — most often as glucosamine sulfate or glucosamine hydrochloride. BOTH SALTS BELONG TO THIS NODE: they deliver the same cation, and separating them would split one literature across two nodes that tie on every paper. The salt is nonetheless REQUIRED on the edge, recorded in dose_regimen as the paper words it (for example "crystalline glucosamine sulfate 1500 mg once daily" or "glucosamine hydrochloride 500 mg three times daily"), because whether the two forms differ in effect is an open and actively disputed question and several reviews pool them separately to different conclusions. Recording the salt is what lets that dispute be read off the graph rather than hidden inside it. Distinct from chondroitin sulfate, which is a different substance and is co-administered with glucosamine in a large share of this literature — a trial giving both in both arms is a combination exposure, not a glucosamine trial. N-acetylglucosamine is a different compound and not this node.
Studied for
1 endpoint, 1 finding, from 1 paper — 1 of them found no effect.
Structure
ChEBI records no single structure for this entry. That is normal for a class rather than a molecule — “a fatty acid” is a real entry with many structures and no one of them.
- Class
- Organic compound
- Formula
- C6H13NO5
- Mass
- 179.171 g/mol
- Charge
- 0
- Look it up
- ChEBI
Identity from ChEBI. Not evidence — none of it carries a grade.
What the evidence says
How to read these marks1 finding across 1 endpoint, from 1 paper, strongest first, 1 of them null.
Every finding here is a null result.
What did not
1 finding
Measured, and no effect detected. These are findings, not gaps — a trial that looked and found nothing is the most easily lost result in this field.
No detected effect on WOMAC pain subscale
LikelyGrade B, Likely. Human evidence, limited replication or design limits.FindingNull result“As for WOMAC pain scores (Fig., the summarized effect size was − 0.04 ([95% CI] − 0.13, 0.06), suggesting a favorable but not significant effect of glucosamine on knee pain as measured by WOMAC.”
Quoted verbatim from Effects of glucosamine in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a systematic review and meta-analysis.. - Study
- meta-analysis
- Dose
- pooled across trials: five used a sulfate salt of glucosamine (two of them Rottapharm/Madaus crystalline glucosamine sulfate), six used the hydrochloride salt, one used N-acetylated glucosamine, unclear for the rest; 1500 mg/day in most studies per the Discussion, per-trial doses not tabulated in Table 1
- Population
- Adults with knee osteoarthritis in randomised placebo-controlled trials published between 2003 and 2016; the pooled trials include both glucosamine given alone and commercial supplements combining glucosamine with other components, chondroitin among them.
Effect -0.04 standardised mean difference, 95% CI -0.13 to 0.06
Effects of glucosamine in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a systematic review and meta-analysis.2018PMID:29713967