What Alternatives are Available for Glucosamine?

The following content has be written by Dr. David Katz the Director and Co-Founder of the Yale Prevention Research Center, the Director of Integrative Medicine at Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT, and the President Elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. This is copyrighted material and may not be used without prior permission. Feel free toSHARE or link to this page. Thank you!

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Today I want to talk about key ingredients in major new joint formulas and why they were chosen. Two of those ingredients are AprèsFlex® and UC-II collagen. And in some formulas, these replace glucosamine and chondroitin.

Now glucosamine and chondroitin have been around for a long time with some studies suggesting they are effective for joint relief and other studies suggesting that maybe they’re not. But even in the studies where they do tend to work, they tend to work slowly over a long period of time.

AprèsFlex®, which is derived from Boswellia Serrata, a plant native to India, has actually been shown in research to confer joint benefit in as little as one week, and then those benefits continue to grow over time. So you get both the quick results that you’re looking for and increasing benefit over time.

UC-II collagen is derived from cartilage, as is chondroitin, but in the case of UC-II collagen, the basic structure of the cartilage is preserved. And recent studies suggest it’s much more effective than both chondroitin and glucosamine combined. In fact one recent study shows it to be twice as effective.

Another advantage to the combination of AprèsFlex® and UC-II collagen is that to the best of our knowledge, they have no side effects whatsoever.
In the case of glucosamine, people with shellfish allergies generally can’t take it, because it’s derived from the hard outer shell of shrimp or crab or lobster. And you don’t have that problem with UC-II collagen, so pretty much anyone can take this product safely.

Another advantage is the high potency of these ingredients. In the case of glucosamine and chondroitin, in order to get an effective dose, it often requires three fairly large pills a day. But because of the high potency action of both UC-II collagen and AprèsFlex®, they both can be combined at effective dosing in a single pill taken once daily. One product that combines them well is Instaflex Advanced.

Until next time, wishing you we