Be Choosy

It’s great to have a choice about how to take care of your joints, but sometimes it can be a bit mind-boggling. Glucosamine or chondroitin?  1500mg or 500mg? Which brand is best?

Now we don’t want to blind you with science, but if you don’t know your glucosamines from your chondroitins, fear not! Here we explain what they are and how they work in the body.

Glucosamine
Glucosamine is a naturally-occurring amino sugar found in healthy joint tissue. It plays an important role in the production of  cartilage and can help support tendons and ligaments. It’s known as ‘the cement of the connective tissues’ because our joints rely on it to maintain themselves. Sadly, as we get older our bodies become less efficient at producing the nutrients we need to keep us active.

Chondroitin
Glucosamine works beautifully when combined with chondroitin. Naturally-occurring chondroitin sulphate exists in the body in the form of chains of repeating sugars. It is known as the ‘liquid magnet’ because it stimulates the uptake of fluid and nutrients into the cartilage, which is vital for proper joint movement.

When it comes to picking a glucosamine product, our advice is – ‘be choosy’.

Don’t be fooled by appearances! Labelling can be confusing, particularly with glucosamine.

Glucosamine sulphate degrades when exposed to moisture. So what this means is it needs to be stabilised as ‘glucosamine sulphate 2KCl’. However, when you’re deciding which product to choose you need to know how much ‘glucosamine sulphate’ you're getting, so read the label VERY carefully. Just because it says 1000mg on the front doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting 1000mg of ‘glucosamine sulphate’. It might be 1000mg of glucosamine sulphate 2KCl in which case this would only give you 750mg of ‘glucosamine sulphate’.

“Do I need my calculator then?” we hear you cry!  NO - we at Health Perception understand how much glucosamine sulphate 2KCl you need to give you 500mg, 750mg, 1500mg of ‘glucosamine sulphate’ so have already done the calculations. What you see written on the front of pack is the amount of ‘glucosamine sulphate’ you’re getting (the number you’re interested in!) -  no calculator required.

But so you understand what it would look like, here are the calculations for Health Perception – we use ‘Glucosamine sulphate (2KCl)’  :-

		665mg glucosamine sulphate 2KCL provides 500mg glucosamine sulphate
		1000mg glucosamine sulphate 2KCl provides 750mg glucosamine sulphate
		2000mg glucosamine sulphate 2KCl provides 1500mg

If you prefer taking tablets, choose those which are blister packed. As we said before, pure glucosamine sulphate degrades rapidly when exposed to moisture. To overcome this, all of our tablets are blister packed to keep them fresh and prevent oxidation - which happens every time the tablets are exposed to the air. Oxidation can result in the active ingredients losing potency.

If your glucosamine is combined with chondroitin, check the purity and source of the chondroitin. We only want the best for you so we only ever use chondroitin from a marine source with a minimum purity of 90%. Some cheaper products may contain a lower grade of chondroitin. We know some people don’t like swallowing tablets, which is why our extensive range of glucosamine products is also available as drinks, gels and patches. After all, variety is the spice of life!