Podcast Summary

Hi, my name's Dr Warrick Bishop and welcome to my podcast or videocast channel and of course welcome to the Healthy Heart Network. Today I'd like to share with you a little bit about glucosamine. You may have heard of glucosamine, you may actually take it. Glucosamine has often been recommended for patients with arthritic problems to help with cartilage, to help with joints, to really... provide some support for people with arthritis and painful joints. There has been a bit of work to suggest it's probably beneficial as a supplement, and certainly because I've got a bit of a bad neck, at times I've taken glucosamine myself. Well, just recently, a group of researchers in the United Kingdom looked at pooled data on a number of glucosamine trials, about, I think about 15 odd trials from memory. And what they wanted to do was see if there was any link between using glucosamine and cardiovascular event. Well, interestingly, on this mixed cohort of trials where they pulled the data, there was a suggestion. that there may well be a reduction in cardiovascular events in patients taking glucosamine. Well, you'd have to sort of think, is that true? Is it real? Why would it happen? So here's the thoughts. Glucosamine probably has a role in anti-inflammatory effects. Well, we know that there's some inflammation plaque formation. We've suspected that for many years. There've been a number of different trials. We've looked at methotrexate, which is an anti-arthritic sort of drug, a disease modifier in plaque. Didn't really have much of an effect, but in the last year or so, a large trial called the Cantos trial, which looked at a very specific inflammatory modulator. Using a special agent called canakinumab, which was directed at one of the inflammatory agents, demonstrated significant reduction in cardiovascular events in the group taking the anti-inflammatory agent. This was really the first major trial that confirmed for us, with outcome data, demonstrating a benefit. that inflammation clearly has a role in plaque formation and in coronary events. So I think we all accept that the premise that inflammation is important is there. There's more ongoing trials right at the moment, and there are agents such as colchicine being considered. Colchicine is often used for gout. We've used it for years for gout. gouty, tofi, painful, swollen, crystal gout. The hope with colchicine is that it treats crystal cholesterol and reduces inflammation in the same way. We're waiting on that data to come through. Well, back to glucosamine. Although this data is tantalising and interesting, it's really only speculative at this stage. There's certainly a suggestion it may be beneficial. There's certainly theoretical reasons why it may be beneficial. But at this stage, I don't think we can advocate that glucosamine is a standard therapeutic intervention for people at increased risk of heart attack or coronary disease. Having said that, though, if your joints are achy and sore and you do need a bit of glucosamine, a bit like I do, you can take it knowing that it's seams. as far as we can tell, not to be adverse in terms of your cardiovascular risk, and if anything, it may just reduce it a little bit. So there's glucosamine. Take a couple for your hips, your knees, or your neck, and you may be doing your heart just a little bit of good. That's it. It was a short one. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you've got any queries or questions, please let us know. And if you've got any ideas for a topic you'd like covered in this series, please also let us know. Until next time, of course, I wish you the very best health. Take care and bye for now.