We think you can judge a company by the products it sells
In our opinion, Glucosamine Skin Patches can’t possibly work and that when a company sells products like this, it raises questions about their technical understanding of their products and quality standards.
We’ve had several letters from customers asking us how to explain why we think Glucosamine skin patches don’t work, so here is our answer:
Skin Patches have been developed by the Pharmaceutical industry to deliver tiny amounts of powerful drugs through the skin, such as nicotine, morphine and HRT. The skin is quite impermeable so special ‘transdermal’ chemicals have to be used to carry the drugs into the bloodstream.
We think Glucosamine patches cannot work because:
- Glucosamine has not been shown to pass through the skin (so Glucosamine ointments are also a waste of time?)
- Few Glucosamine patches we’ve seen contain the transdermal chemicals needed to carry drugs through the skin or at least they are not on the ingredients lists, although one product we found contained more of an aluminium compound, than it did of Glucosamine!
- The amount of Glucosamine needed to be effective is huge, typically 1500mg, which is an amount that could never be delivered by a patch through the skin. Nicotine patches, for example, contain 40mg and only 17mg gets through the skin.
- Glucosamine is a nutrient, not a painkiller and is used by the body to build cartilage. This takes weeks, so how can a pack of patches really provide benefit?
Finally, our experts point out that a few people have just one joint that needs help and the beauty of consuming Glucosamine tablets, is that all the joints in the body will benefit from this marvellous compound.
So, in our opinion, Glucosamine Patches are a complete waste of money, and we are staggered by how much they cost! But if any of the companies selling them can prove otherwise then we will be happy to print a retraction of this opinion.
