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Remember that the information presented here is not intended to replace the care of your own doctor. Before making any changes in the management of your own illness, you should consult your physician or other qualified medical professionals.
Question
Will taking glucosamine chondroitin raise blood sugar levels?Answer
A Google search for "glucosamine chondroitin" produced over 200,000 potential weblinks, a good proportion of which are retailers wanting to sell supplements. Two excellent and reliable sources are the Arthritis Foundation and the National Institutes of Health - National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS).Following are three links that contained reasonable and evidence-based information:
- Dietary Outcomes in Osteoarthritis Disease Management
- A reference at PubMed: The effect of glucosamine-chondroitin supplementation on glycosylated hemoglobin levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a placebo-controlled, double-blinded, randomized clinical trial.Arch Intern Med. 2003 Jul 14;163(13):1587-90..
- A Q&A at DAREF's Ask the Diabetes Educator Archive.
To answer your question, the second link above is a study recently conducted in patients with type 2 diabetes taking glucosamine chondroitin. The endpoint measure was HbA1c levels after three months of therapy, and no change was seen between the glucosamine chondroitin group and a placebo group. However, A1c is an average of blood glucose over three months and may not indicate day-to-day changes in blood glucose levels. Since glucosamine is a glucose molecule and an amino acid linked together, some studies have shown an increase in blood glucose levels with larger doses of glucosamine chondroitin.
A good recommendation is simply to monitor blood glucose levels more frequently with the initiation of glucosamiine chondroitin to gauge how your own body responds to this added therapy (per the advice in the last link above).
[ED: Also see Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate, at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons website.]
