What is a reliable, standardized brand of glucosamine and chondroitin?

March 23, 2016 4:53 PM

What is a reliable, standardized brand of glucosamine and chondroitin for humans? In dogs, Nutramax Dasuquin is the one overwhelmingly recommended by orthopedists and used in animal studies because the company is reliable and the tablets contain what they say they contain. Is there an equivalent product for humans? Can you point me to evidence that it's a reliable product?
posted by HotToddy to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: Well, you could just go with Nutramax's product for humans, Cosamin DS. I can't imagine their human products would be of lower quality than their their canine ones.

Consumer Reports published an article a couple years ago and found that 7 of the 16 brands they tested did not contain as much they claimed to. Was glad to see that my preferred brand, Schiff, made the cut (so did Cosamin, of course).
posted by kindall at 5:03 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Oh! Ha. Did not realize that existed. That's a wrap!
posted by HotToddy at 6:32 PM on March 23, 2016

Dasuquin is recommended for dogs because of the ASU component, not the glucosamine, at least by the orthopedic vets I know. Use tge human version, Cosamin ASU to get the ASU.
posted by biscotti at 10:15 AM on March 24, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks, yes, I use the ASU version of Dasuquin and was planning to try the ASU version of Cosamin first for myself. But I actually had a dog for stem cell at VOSM this year and they had me use the non-ASU version during the 3-month rehab period because the anti-inflammatory effect of the ASU might interfere with the stem cells in the same way that NSAIDs do. So they at least think the glucosamine/chondroitin alone is useful. Not that it matters, just thought you might find that interesting.
posted by HotToddy at 8:00 PM on March 24, 2016

I always suggest to buy these sorts of things at Costco because Costco is the one retailer that I know of that credibly claims to continually lab test all the products they sell to verify ingredients, quality, etc. They are able to do that because they don't have as many SKUs as a drug store, supermarket, Target, Wal-Mart, etc.
posted by OCDan at 10:48 PM on March 24, 2016