Is Arthritis Supplement Safe from Mad Cow Disease?

A rheumatology expert, Dr. Gerald Weissmann, questions whether the widely marketed dietary supplement chondroitin sulfate, derived from cow cartilage, is safe from contamination with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. His investigation is chronicled on the e-magazine RheumatologyWeb.

Because both chondroitin and glucosamine are components of normal cartilage that work in the body to stimulate and maintain cartilage growth, it is thought by many people that the animal-derived supplement may be able to help the body repair cartilage damaged by arthritis. However, to date there has been no definitive evidence that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfates, either in combination or alone, can help rebuild cartilage or prevent damage to cartilage, and the American College of Rheumatology currently does not recommend their use.

A large-scale, multicenter study to investigate their use is being conducted by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in collaboration with the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. The chondroitin being used in the study comes from a Spanish company, which claims to use only material from U.S. cows.

In the meantime, U.S. individuals taking the supplements must consider the fact that they are unregulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to Dr. Weissmann, in order for the supplement to be considered safe from BSE, it must be derived solely from the cartilage of U.S. cows.

"With many of these supplements being manufactured in Europe, the specter is certainly raised that this may not be the case. The use of other tissues or cartilage from European cows significantly increases the risk of BSE contamination,” he explained. This means that European users or people using supplements produced in Europe must depend on supplement manufacturers to identify the origin of the cartilage used.


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