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Glucosamine significantly reduces risk of lung cancer and lung cancer mortality
- abcc8 4y agoInteresting study, but it needs replication. A 15% reduction in cancer incidence is a rather large reduction, assuming this result is replicated in a different, ideally non-European cohort.
- dudus 4y agoIt had almost half a million subjects. Isn't that enough replication?
- abcc8 4y agoIt isn't the most diverse cohort so a body such as the WHO might or might not choose to make recommendations based on this single finding.
- rootusrootus 4y agoShouldn't we want replication even if the sample size seems large, to rule out experimental errors or other flaws in the work?
- refurb 4y agoThis is true. That’s a very large effect. But as others have stated it’s observational, not an interventional study. Thus less rigorous.
- jugg1es 4y agoI love when you see such a huge study yield significant results.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jcoq 4y agoThere have been other studies with similar results but the main drawback of these population analyses is that glucosamine use is more likely in people with healthy lifestyles. Other supplements have shown benefits in these sorts of studies without standing up to more exacting experiment design. So potentially interesting results but nothing worth getting invested in.
- DantesKite 4y agoIt would be cool if someone made a dashboard of studies complete with their listed interventions to find out which were the most effective for preventing cancer and reducing cancer mortality.
- uncomputation 4y agoexamine.com has a lot of good studies referenced.
- ttrmw 4y agoNot quite what you asked for, but this is a nice resource for at a glance assessment of supplements: https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-scientific-evidence-for-nutritional-supplements-vizsweet/ https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-...
- DantesKite 4y agoThis is great. Thank you very much for the recommendation.
- phendrenad2 4y agoAccording to a google search, "the only natural food sources are shellfish shells from shrimp, lobster and crabs". So I wonder if you can see a significant effect in people who eat a lot of shrimp.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoWell if it is truly only in the shells, then probably not!
- MengerSponge 4y agoA lot of shrimp recipes have you cook the shells in oil for extra flavor. This one is a personal favorite: https://www.seriouseats.com/spanish-style-garlic-shrimp-gambas-al-ajillo-recipe https://www.seriouseats.com/spanish-style-garlic-shrimp-gamb... Seriously. Get some good shrimp, some garlic, and go to town on some crusty bread. It's one of the recipes I'd still eat even if it took time off my life, it's just so damn good.
- _emacsomancer_ 4y agoalso, the really small shrimp are just cooked and eaten with the shell
- bpicolo 4y agoEating shrimp shell-on and fried is fairly common in a lot of countries
- _emacsomancer_ 4y agoat least the small ones are very tasty (& crunchy) eaten this way
- pengaru 4y agoMy favorite sushi restaurant in San Mateo, CA (sushi sams) would serve a single fried shrimp appetizer with the head still on. It's a crispy tasty delight!
- KennyBlanken 4y agoI find it difficult to believe that it has "significant" health benefits. Glucosamine has never shown significant health benefits, only minor ones: https://examine.com/supplements/glucosamine/ https://examine.com/supplements/glucosamine/ I find it extremely difficult to trust an all-Chinese research team on a substance heavily used in "traditional chinese medicine", for two reasons: "TCM" is the invention of Mao, who needed to look like he was doing something to provide medical care for billions: https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-medicine-origins-mao-invented-it-but-didnt-believe-in-it.html https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-med... ...and the CCP has been pushing it very heavily: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/08/31/china-is-ramping-up-its-promotion-of-its-ancient-medical-arts https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/08/31/china-is-rampin... Or more simply put, it's utter tripe that was passed off to peasants to keep them from rioting over having essentially no healthcare system.
- culi 4y ago> Glucosamine has never shown significant health benefits, only minor ones ... This is a bit of a ridiculous argument to make when looking at the data. First of all, they only have 8 categories, only 2 of which have more than 2 studies cited. Second of all, imagine if you only studied the effects of aspirin on addiction. I'm assuming you'd find little to no effect. And if Examine had a list of addiction-related effects you'd also be like "look aspirin is weak, how can it suddenly be strong?". The listed effects on examine all have to do with pain relief which likely has little in common with the mechanism of action for lung cancer > I find it extremely difficult to trust an all-Chinese research team This is published in a (European) journal with an H-index of 255.[0] The journal is reputable so are you just asserting you can't trust Chinese scientists to study ingredients used in TCM? > "TCM" is the invention of Mao This is very false. Even the article you link only says Mao "heavily invested" in it. You know who else is heavily investing in traditional medicine? The World Health Organization. Which currently has a decades long plan to support and fund and increase the role that complementary medicines play in non-industrialized countries[1][2] [0] https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=18458&tip=sid&clean=0 https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=18458&tip=sid&... [1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/traditional-complementary-and-integrative-medicine https://www.who.int/health-topics/traditional-complementary-... [2] https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241506096 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241506096
- civilized 4y agohttps://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
- tirwander 4y agoMurders By Steam....
- Gatsky 4y agoThese results from observational studies almost never replicate in randomized studies. It's because people who decide to take glucosamine (or not) also do lots of other confounding things, like visit the doctor more, or have higher salaries, or don't live with people who smoke etc. It's been shown many times you can't really adjust for these things. Epidemiologists love doing these studies, because they are comparatively easy. The hardest part is the data sharing agreement with whatever registry you are using. You don't even need to leave your desk to collect any data.
- mrfusion 4y agoGood advice in general but it’s worth reading to see what confounders they tried to correct for. There’s still information to be gleaned. This part caught my eye: > A stronger association between glucosamine use and decreased lung cancer risk was observed in participants with a family history of lung cancer when compared with those without a family history.
- SoftTalker 4y agoA family history of lung cancer could simply mean a family history of smoking, which was much more common a few generations ago than it is today.
- zoom6628 4y agoThis was done in Guangzhou where I lived for years until 2018. The incidence of smoking amongst males still higher - gut guess of 30-40% adult males are smokers in the city and province. So in their cohort one would expect to be seeing still living relatives of young adult smokers who are also smokers. Interesting that it’s sold as supplement for joint and related tissue repair and yet first big science study with observable results is about cancer. Other interesting point is that it’s study of cancer. And that is simply because China still has huge numbers of smokers and the health cost is stratospheric.
- a9h74j 4y ago
- jnwatson 4y agoInteresting. I‘ve been taking a glucosamine supplement for several years since I saw a study that correlates it with overall reduced mortality.
- thebigspacefuck 4y agoMe too. I’m still here!
- lvturner 4y agoConfirmation bias?
- danbruc 4y agoSurvivorship bias.
- cybertronic 4y agomore like survivorship bias?
- throwaway290 4y agoPerhaps the causality here is that if you care about reducing own mortality, then your general course is action ends up reducing your mortality. It would be difficult to tell if it's glucosamine that's the cause, or some other thing a person of the kind that takes glucosamine would do (or all of such things in combination).
- Spooky23 4y agoI can’t speak for people, but I did notice meaningful improvement in my dog’s joint pain when we provided glucosamine supplements. Inflammation is correlated with many conditions, so I would not be surprised to see other correlations, or that it was combined with other inflammation reducing agents.
- 4y ago
- ck2 4y agoIf you are allergic to shellfish you are going to have a fun time finding out with conventional glucosamine. Note there is a version made from corn but more expensive and you have to look for it (I think it's called "GreenGrown"). I think it's chemically identical?
- clumsysmurf 4y agoThe problem with glucosamine is that it reliably increases intraocular pressure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5350357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5350357/
- agumonkey 4y agoIs there research to engineer ways so that we can use blood as delivery only in some areas ? I know it sounds stupid but maybe toying with timings so that chemicals never live long enough to reach upper body / brain ? or maybe microcapsules that only dissolve in certain biological environment ?
- db65edfc7996 4y agoSpecifically targeting compounds is an active area of research. Example: all oncotherapies are essentially just poison. The trick is to deliver the toxin to the 0.001% of cells in the body that are cancerous. It is amusing you should say ways that avoid reaching the brain. The blood-brain barrier impedes a large number of therapeutics from entering the brain. It is incredibly difficult to engineer the constraints of something that: is potent enough to have an effect, can survive in the blood, cross into the brain, targets the cells of interest, has a meaningful half-life, does not decompose into something toxic, etc.
- voisin 4y agoDoes it raise it enough to cause issues? What are the issues associated with increased pressure?
- manceraio 4y agoIncreases the risk of glaucoma. https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-conditions-and-diseases/glaucoma/glaucoma-and-eye-pressure#:~:text=Research%20shows%20that%20high%20eye,stop%20vision%20loss%20from%20glaucoma https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-condition....
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
- pseudoramble 4y agoI'm unfamiliar with glucosamine aside from the quick search and comments I read now. Neat that they see a correlation, but are there any theories about why this would be the case? Do the lungs use glucosamine somehow?
- telecuda 4y agoRelated, glucosamine treats had a quick positive impact on the mobility of my aging dog. I recommend these: https://stratfordrx.com/products/max-strength-joint-support-soft-chews-w-msm-for-dogs-100ct/ https://stratfordrx.com/products/max-strength-joint-support-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bottled_poe 4y agoAnecdotal, but I had a conversation about smoking with a med science professor many years ago. He said something along the lines of “as long as you don’t eat seafood your risk is low”. I was baffled.. looks like there is some truth to it.
- copperx 4y agoThe risk of what is low?
- jacobmischka 4y agoBased on the title and reference to smoking, I imagine he means the risk of lung cancer.
- Galaxity 4y agoSeafood is a main source of glucosamine so shouldn't it be "as long as you DO eat seafood your risk is low"?
- hirenj 4y agoGlucosamine is both a precursor metabolite and major component of complex carbohydrates in the cell. Glucosamine (GlcN) gets acetylated to form GlcNAc, which is found in pretty much all the complex carbohydrate types in humans. It’s also the main component of the chitin shells on our insect/crustacean friends. You can also find GlcN in glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), in heparan sulfates (transformed from GlcNAc to an N-sulfated GlcN by the NDSTs) as a prerequisite for further sulfation. The pattern of sulfation on these sugars is important for determining the bioactivity and interactions for each of the GAGs. For example, the sulfation pattern on heprarin is important to tune to avoid HITT while still maintaining anticoagulant activity.
- DantesKite 4y agoAny concerns about glucosamine raising eye pressure? And also, if NAG is a component of GAGs, doesn’t that mean taking an NAG supplement could contribute towards increased ocular pressure as well? Or are the chemical pathways in the body too dissimilar for that to happen?
- hirenj 4y agoIf there’s a connection, it might be via hyaluronan, another glycan polymer, which is abundant in the vitreous humor in the eye. I don’t know much about how it’s regulated. Generally, I don’t think we know enough about how metabolite levels translate to specific complex carb levels because there’s a relatively complex set of intermediate steps which themselves can be regulated.
- AlexanderNull 4y agoThis is hardly the first time that Glucosamine use is associated with lower cancer/mortality risks: https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/6/829 https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/6/829 - Associations of regular glucosamine use with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a large prospective cohort study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33219063/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33219063/ - Glucosamine/Chondroitin and Mortality in a US NHANES Cohort https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175750/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175750/ - Use of Glucosamine and Chondroitin and Lung Cancer Risk in the VITamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) Cohort https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5870876/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5870876/ - Glucosamine Use and Risk of Colorectal Cancer: Results from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort https://cancerci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2867-9-25 https://cancerci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-286... - Glucosamine suppresses proliferation of human prostate carcinoma DU145 cells through inhibition of STAT3 signaling (in vitro) https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(17)30735-1/fulltext https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(17)30735-1/... - Glucosamine and chondroitin decrease colorectal cancer risk Some of those still showed significant correlation even when accounting for NSAID use however there have been other studies where the correlation significance disappears when accounting for NSAIDs: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20349-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20349-6 Mortality reduction with glucosamine has been directly shown in more controlled studies on other organisms such as nematodes and mice, but may do so through a path that hasn't been shown to work in humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4563 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4563 And in an actual double blind study glucosamine (+ chondroitin) use was found to lower serum levels of C-reactive protein in men and women: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117534 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (small sample size)
- fellow_human 4y agoGlucosamine is taken a lot by runners as its promoted as a suppliment that helps cartilidge in the knees. Runners are unlikely to be current smokers and more likely to be working their lungs in a healhty way.