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Comment by bigpumpkin | Hacker News Reader

are there dietary sources of glucosamine?

there's no reason to believe macromolecules like glucosamine benefit the body any more than regular, nutritious food. ingested nutrition generally gets broken down into amino acids and the like in the digestive system before it gets distributed to the rest of the body to be reconsistuted into cells and tissue.

cartilage in particular is scaffolding and generally must be constructed by other cells from very basic molecules at anchor points. it's decidedly not like lego blocks of glucosamine and chondroitin that just get assembled together.

As someone that has taken various vitamins and supplements over the years, glucosamine is the one where I truly feel a difference. In my knees, my back stopped cracking when I woke up, and generally just better. Others I take based on blood tests if something is out of whack for a time.

For me too.. And I'm usually extremely sceptical of food supplements and general quackery.

My joints have also been really cracky since I was a child. This seems a bit less but still present with the glucosamine.

But my elbow joints are often sore due to being on the computer way too much and every time I start taking it again it fades in a day or two. I don't think I'm imagining it :) Many other stuff I don't feel much benefit to.

Can I ask your age (or which decade if you prefer!)?

What brand and dosage do you take?

+1. Love to know age, weight and dosages people are taking. (And biological sex, if you feel comfortable.)

Glucosamine supplementation doesn't appear to have harmful effects on humans and is pretty cheap. It may work for some people, so if you have joint issues why not give it a shot?

You raise a good point, but wouldnt taking glucosamine and chondroitin load you up (hopefully) on the base components required to then again make glucosamine and chondroitin locally in one's body?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucosamine#Bioavailability:

“In the first study, glucosamine sulfate was given to healthy volunteers in doses of 750, 1500, or 3000 mg once daily. In the second study, oral glucosamine sulfate capsules (1500 mg) were given daily for two weeks to 12 people with osteoarthritis. Glucosamine concentrations in plasma and synovial fluid increased significantly from baseline levels […] but the levels are still ten- to a hundredfold lower than required to positively affect the cartilage (chondrocytes) to build new tissue”

⇒ the good news is that these molecules make it through the intestines intact, and arrive at the place where they are supposed to help. The bad news seems to be you would need to take huge doses.

It is important to remember the study only saw a correlation between the dietary supplement and mortality. Glucosamine Sulfate is from what I understand the most common form in the supplements on the shelf. Our bodies produce glucosamine naturally.

> Specifically in humans, glucosamine-6-phosphate is synthesized from fructose 6-phosphate and glutamine by glutamine—fructose-6-phosphate transaminase as the first step of the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway -wikipedia

Don't worry. By the time [insert popular news outlet] finds out about this, it'll be a cure all.

Yes - cartilage. If you eat chicken or something like that, eat the cartilage. You can do this on pre-cooked chickens you get from Sam's Club / Costco. If you eat chicken breasts only (which a lot of health-conscious people do), you don't get this benefit.

I talked to Dr.Yang Jwing Ming (one of the few Kung Fu practioners with a Western phd and he said eating cartilage is one of the best ways to help reduce the risk of arthritis. Oh, and pig ears too, but I never tried that, being a Westerner and all.

Westerners have eaten pig ears for centuries.

I would be surprised if I've met anyone in the US who has eaten pig ear nor the chicken feet you see next to them in the hispanic market. And just about everyone would react to the ick factor.

I don't think it's as common as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig%27s_ear_(food).

I don't really know of anyone who eats pig ears but chicken feet aren't that weird for the American South.

It's not super-common but it's nothing out of the ordinary either. Many restaurants in Southern Europe, including France, serve dishes such as pig feet, pig snout or pig head.

Also explains how 'Westerners' have been living so long for centuries, especially before the 1960s.

I read research that to reap benefits of these sources ( collagen, etc) your stomach acid needs to be strong enough to break it down- old people have weaker stomach acid so they get wrinkles easier- Supplement apple cider vinegar, lemon juice etc or other fermented foods raises stomach acid strength and raises blood Alkalinity, or so I heard

Another great way to get cartilage is with chicken soup, slow cooked until the gristle liquefies in to the soup. It's more absorbable by the body that way. Chicken fat is great for the skin, too. Easy and cheap to cook - just get a whole hen and simmer it in water in a big pot, or use a crock pot.

Would chicken bone broth have it?

No, it's a myth:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/10/384948585/ta...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5533136/

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/11/truth-about-...

None of those mention Glucosamine. And they seem to be sour grapes articles, not sure why. One of the “myths” they dispel is “bone broth tastes good”.

It does raise some good thoughts on why it’s not a super food.

Quite probably. I am assuming that home-made methods are similar as industrial scale methods (put a bunch of chicken bones and connective tissue in a vat of water, simmer, strain).

Collagen has it too?

Pig ears are absolutely delicious

I really hope at some point in our lifetimes, the deleterious effects of animal protein are pervasively understood by educated Americans to the point where consuming animal parts for their anti-inflammatory benefits would be an oxymoron on par with smoking to prevent cancer. An overwhelming body of scientific evidence suggests that humans are omnivores and not carnivores and the human body evolved to process animal protein on an occasional basis(like alcohol) and not because it’s good for us on a daily basis.

1. Glucosamine is not a protein. 2. The claimed benefit of glucosamine is not anti-inflammation, but providing the building blocks for cartilage repair as synovial fluid is circulated in the joint. 3. It's very difficult to get sufficient protein from a plant based diet, especially when avoiding soy, which raises estrogen.

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