The Miraculous Effects of Chondroitin Sulfate
Jan 17, 2022
Chondroitin sulfate, a glycosaminoglycan sulfate (GAG), is an important structural component of cartilage and provides great resistance to cartilage stress. Like glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate has become a widely used dietary supplement in the treatment of osteoarthritis. It is also approved and used in Europe and some other countries as a slow-acting drug for the treatment of osteoarthritis, usually chondroitin sulfate is prepared in a combination dosage form with glucosamine.
In terms of arthritis efficacy, a 2015 study published in the journal Cochrane Database Syst Rev (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews), which included 43 randomized controlled trials of 4962 participants treated with chondroitin and 4148 patients who did not receive chondroitin, found that with chondroitin sulfate treatment, arthritis pain improved to some extent in the short term, and chondroitin side effects were rare. However, this improvement in pain was not particularly dramatic, and it did not appear to reverse the cartilage damage that had already occurred.
In addition to treating arthritis, scientists have found that chondroitin has unexpected effects in preventing cardiovascular disease, improving memory, and neurological disorders.
Chondroitin has shown some promise in the treatment of coronary artery disease, with the chondroitin sulfate group showing a 350% reduction in fatal heart attacks compared to the control group in a 6-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that included 60 trial subjects. When analyzing data on non-fatal cardiovascular events, the incidence of non-fatal heart attacks without chondroitin sulfate was 16%, compared to 0% in the chondroitin sulfate-treated group.
In July, James W. Fawcett's team from the University of Cambridge, UK, published important findings in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, in which they found that upregulating chondroitin 6-sulfate (C6S) levels in aged mice was effective in restoring cortical long-term enhancement and improving memory in mice. Perhaps in the future chondroitin sulfate will be used to improve aging-related memory deficits and decline. It was found that perineuronal matrix networks (PNNs) are specialized extracellular matrix structures that surround neuronal cells and dendrites and are involved in regulating body development, synaptic plasticity and learning memory processes, and the main component of PNNs is chondroitin sulfate compounds. Increasing the level of chondroitin 6-sulfate, which promotes neuroplasticity, can increase the inhibitory synapses of small clear protein-positive neurons and promote the recovery of normal memory.
As for safety, a professional study published in 2007 in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology showed that no significant side effects or overdose side effects of chondroitin sulfate have been identified, suggesting the safety of long-term chondroitin use.
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