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Wherever
two bones meet and bend it is called an articulation.
Your fingers are a set of articulations and like all other
articulations, they can bend and glide because of cartilage.
Cartilage is technically a connective tissue and is composed
of cells called chondrocytes, protein fibers called collagen
and clusters of complex molecules called proteoglycans.
These proteoglycans look like a test-tube brush. The bristles
of the brush are referred to as the side chains. It is
these side chains that glucosamine sulfate helps repair.
These side chains are what gives cartilage its sponginess
and pliability.
Veterinarians
have been using glucosamine sulfate for over 40 years
with great success. Only recently has glucosamine sulfate
been used to help humans. So what exactly is glucosamine
sulfate? Glucosamine sulfate consists of glucosamine,
an amino sugar extracted from shellfish skeletons (chitin)
which is sulfated for stabilization. You might think of
it as part protein and part sugar, amino as in amino acid
(protein) and glucose as in sugar.
Glucosamine
sulfate is one of the most important nutritional supplements
for joint health ever developed. Glucosamine sulfate provides
significant benefits for both the structure and function
of joints. Many years of research have produced unequivocal
evidence that glucosamine sulfate normalizes cartilage
metabolism, slows breakdown of cartilage, and improves
joint function.
The
dosage of glucosamine sulfate is critical to its effectiveness.
500mg per 50 pounds of body weight appears to be the optimal
dosage with 2000mg being the upper limit. Most people
fail at benefiting from glucosamine sulfate because they
do not take enough. A little bit does not necessarily
help you a little bit, in fact it most likely will do
nothing. Also glucosamine sulfate is not a pain killing
drug so it does not work in minutes, hours or days. It
takes 4-6 weeks for it effectiveness to be fully realized.
This is because it is healing the tissue not just covering
up the pain.
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