Nutraceuticals – how do they work?

Supplemental nutraceuticals work by providing exactly what their name says they do: extra nutrition. Illness, injury, or extra hard work can increase the amount of nutrients one’s body needs.

They exert a number of physiological processes in the body to produce favourable/unfavourable effects. In osteoarthritis, such processes include oxidative damage, cartilage matrix degradation and repair, and chondrocyte function and responses in adjacent bone. Micronutrients for which preliminary evidence of benefit exists include vitamin C and vitamin D. In addition, nutraceuticals that may influence pathophysiology of the disease--including glucosamine, chondroitin, S-adenosylmethionine, ginger and avocado/soybean unsaponifiables--have been tested in clinical trials.

Most of these products are considered safe and well tolerated by the body, but interpretation of the collective results is difficult due to the heterogeneity of the studies, inconsistent results, and the puzzle of how to resolve an apparent structural benefit with absence or modest effect on symptoms.

References:
•http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16483910
•http://www.eorthopod.com/public/patient_education/7179/nutraceuticals_dietary_supplements.html
•http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1521694205001038