Association of habitual glucosamine use with risk of cardiovascular disease: prospective study in UK Biobank

Abstract

Objective: To prospectively assess the association of habitual glucosamine use with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: UK Biobank.

Participants: 466 039 participants without CVD at baseline who completed a questionnaire on supplement use, which included glucosamine. These participants were enrolled from 2006 to 2010 and were followed up to 2016.

Main outcome measures: Incident CVD events, including CVD death, coronary heart disease, and stroke.

Results: During a median follow-up of seven years, there were 10 204 incident CVD events, 3060 CVD deaths, 5745 coronary heart disease events, and 3263 stroke events. After adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, race, lifestyle factors, dietary intakes, drug use, and other supplement use, glucosamine use was associated with a significantly lower risk of total CVD events (hazard ratio 0.85, 95% confidence interval 0.80 to 0.90), CVD death (0.78, 0.70 to 0.87), coronary heart disease (0.82, 0.76 to 0.88), and stroke (0.91, 0.83 to 1.00).

Conclusion: Habitual use of glucosamine supplement to relieve osteoarthritis pain might also be related to lower risks of CVD events.

Fig 1

Association of glucosamine supplement use and risk of cardiovascular disease event and cardiovascular disease death stratified by potential risk factors. Results were adjusted for age, sex, race (white European, mixed, South Asian, black, others), average total annual household income (<£18 000, £18 000-£30 999, £31 000-£51 999, £52 000-£100 000, >£100 000, and “do not know” or missing; £1.00=$1.30, €1.20), alcohol intake, physical activity (<150 or ≥150 min/week), diabetes (yes, no, or missing), hypertension (yes or no), high cholesterol (yes or no), arthritis (yes or no), antihypertensive drugs (yes or no), lipid treatment (yes or no), insulin treatment (yes or no), aspirin use (yes or no), non-aspirin non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use (yes or no), vitamin supplement use (yes or no), mineral and other dietary supplement use (yes or no), and healthy diet (yes or no)

Fig 2

Association of glucosamine supplement use and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke stratified by potential risk factors. Results were adjusted for age, sex, race (white European, mixed, South Asian, black, others), average total annual household income (<£18 000, £18 000-£30 999, £31 000-£51 999, £52 000-£100 000, >£100 000, and “do not know” or missing; £1.00=$1.30, €1.20), alcohol intake, physical activity (<150 or ≥150 min/week), diabetes (yes, no, or missing), hypertension (yes or no), high cholesterol (yes or no), arthritis (yes or no), antihypertensive drugs (yes or no), lipid treatment (yes or no), insulin treatment (yes or no), aspirin use (yes or no), non-aspirin non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use (yes or no), vitamin supplement use (yes or no), mineral and other dietary supplement use (yes or no), and healthy diet (yes or no)