Americans continue to spend millions of dollars annually on
glucosamine and
chondroitin for symptoms of
osteoarthritis. These agents are classified as dietary supplements, not as drugs, per se. Therefore, they do not meet the requirements of the FDA to be classified as drugs. This study was designed to determine if
glucosamine and
chondroitin are effective for
osteoarthritis pain. This report was adapted from an online publication by the National Center for Complimentary and
Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health to inform the general public about the GAIT trial and its findings. Participants taking the positive control,
celecoxib, experienced statistically significant
pain relief versus placebo, about 70% of those taking
celecoxib had a 20% or greater reduction in
pain versus about 60% for placebo. Overall, there were no significant differences between the other treatments tested and placebo. For a subset of participants with moderate-to-severe
pain,
glucosamine combined with
chondroitin sulfate provided statistically significant
pain relief compared with placebo, about 79% had a 20% or greater reduction in
pain versus about 54% for placebo. According to the researchers, because of the small size of this subgroup these findings should be considered preliminary and need to be confirmed in further studies. For participants in the mild
pain subset,
glucosamine and
chondroitin sulfate together or alone did not provide statistically significant
pain relief.