BACKGROUND Glucosamine is commonly prescribed as a disease modulating agent in osteoarthritis. However, the evidence to date suggests that it has a limited impact on the clinical symptoms of the disease including joint pain, radiological progression, function and quality of life. The aim of this study was to examine the prescribing patterns of glucosamine from 2002-2011 in an elderly Irish nati...

OBJECTIVE To assess the incidence of Total Joint Replacement (TJR) during the long-term follow-up of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) formerly receiving treatment with glucosamine sulphate or placebo. METHODS Knee OA patients participating in two previous randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, 3-year trials of glucosamine sulphate and receiving treatment for at least 12 months, w...

The amino sugar, D-glucosamine, inhibits the preformed route of thymidine metabolism in rat C6 glioma cells. This inhibition results from a concatenation of several distinct effects, including the inhibition of thymidine uptake, the reduction of thymidine phosphorylation, and an increased leakage of thymidine to the extracellular space. Each of these effects, while ostensibly small in magnitude...

The amphiphilic graft copolymer using chitosan (CS) as hydrophilic segment and poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) as hydrophobic segment, was prepared through a protection-graft-de protection route. Chitosan is a polysaccharide comprising of copolymers of glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine. Chitosan is the deacetylated derivative of chitin, which is one of the most abundant natural polysaccharides c...

Osteoarthritis is the most common arthritis in the world. It affects millions of people with age being the greatest risk factor for developing the disease. The burden of disease will worsen with the aging of the world's population. The disease causes pain and functional disability. The direct costs of osteoarthritis include hospital and physician visits, medications, and assistive services. The...

We reported previously that D-glucosamine or a close derivative was involved in the synthesis of the N-methyl-L-glucosamine moiety of streptomycin'). Since D-glucosamine is a component of the cell wall of streptomycetes2,3), this sugar or its derivatives may be a common precursor of streptomycin and the cell wall. We studied also whether UDP-N-methyl D glucosaminephosphate was involved in the s...

The infusion of glucosamine causes insulin resistance, presumably by entering the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway; it has been proposed that this pathway plays a role in hyperglycemia-induced insulin resistance. This study was undertaken to determine if glucosamine infusion could influence exercise-stimulated glucose uptake. Male SD rats were infused with glucosamine at 0.1 mg x kg(-1) x min(-1...

That glucosamine arises from glucose without previous scission of the carbon chain has been indicated by studies of the biosynthesis of the glucosamine portion of the hyaluronic acid (HA) molecule by group A streptococcus (1, 2) and of the formation of blood glucosamine in rats (3, 4). Relatively little information is available regarding the mechanism of this reaction, although Lowther and Roge...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical utility of a novel radiotracer, 99mTc-glucosamine, in assessing disease activity of both rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Material and Methods: Twenty-five patients with RA (nine males and 16 females) and 12 patients with AS (all male) at various stages of disease were recruited for the study. A clinical history and examination was pe...

It is increasingly recognized that macrophages are a key cell in the development of atherosclerosis. Glucosamine, the product of the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway in diabetes mellitus, can disturb lipid metabolism, induce apoptosis and accelerate atherosclerosis via endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in various types of cells. Previous studies have indicated that quercetin possesses antidiabet...