Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are two supplements used to treat arthritis and joint pain. Still, recent studies have shown that these two popular drugs don’t work properly or don’t do enough to cure neither arthritis, nor joint pain. But the researchers added that their study needed to be revised as some findings were confusing.

Dr. Allen Sawitzke of the University Of Utah School Of Medicine said that "At two years, no treatment showed what we determined to be a clinically important reduction in joint space width loss." The study was made by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institute of Health and showed that these drugs don’t have the effect for which they were designed.

Sawitzke and colleagues published a report in the October issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism saying that they had troubles in seeing the real results because patients who had taken a placebo instead of glucosamine or chondroitin showed a smaller loss of cartilage than they should have had.

572 volunteers have been watched since a study made in 2006. They have been tracked for 18 months and researchers have concluded that the supplements didn’t slow down the loss of cartilage even if they were taken together or separately. Arthritis got worse in 24% of the patients, just like the ones who were taking a placebo.

Dr. Stephen Katz, director of the NIH's National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, stated that "Research continues to reveal that osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, appears to be the result of an array of factors including age, gender, genetics, obesity, and joint injuries."