Glucosamine and medications.
Glucosamine is in the Distil supplement database, evidence Grade B. The page below lists every medication we have explicitly assessed it against.
Glucosamine is an amino sugar found in cartilage, usually paired with chondroitin sulfate and taken for the joint pain of moderate osteoarthritis. The standard dose is glucosamine sulfate 1,500mg with chondroitin sulfate 1,200mg, and the form matters: the sulfate salt is the one with trial evidence, not the HCl version. The evidence is Grade B for pain relief in moderate-to-severe OA, weaker in mild OA, and Grade C for any actual preservation of cartilage. The large GAIT trial showed mixed results overall, which is why this sits in the honest middle rather than the headline tier. On interactions, the main thing to know is the shellfish angle: most glucosamine is shellfish-derived, so anyone with that allergy should use the corn-fermentation form instead. It tends to cause mild stomach upset, so take it with food. A practical note: give it a steady eight to twelve weeks before judging whether it helps your joints.
Below are the 2 documented pairs we have explicitly assessed for Glucosamine: 2 amber. The pairs cluster around 1 mechanism: Additive anticoagulation. Every call is cited to either a clinical reference (PMID) or the British National Formulary. Anything not listed here is either still to be assessed or beyond our database scope. The checker beneath surfaces assessments by medication, and the missing-item form at the bottom of the page routes any uncatalogued medication into our next curation pass.
Documented interactions
Additive anticoagulation
Glucosamine (often with chondroitin) has been reported to increase the blood-thinning effect of acenocoumarol and raise the INR, sometimes enough to cause bleeding. If you take acenocoumarol, it is best to avoid glucosamine or only use it with your anticoagulant clinic's knowledge and extra INR checks.
Reviewer-flagged: awaiting clinical-reviewer sign-off.
Glucosamine can push warfarin's blood-thinning effect higher, raising your INR and your bleeding risk. This shows up more when the glucosamine dose goes up. If you take warfarin, tell your anticoagulation clinic before starting glucosamine and ask for an INR check within a couple of weeks, especially if you change the dose.
What this list does not say. Pairs not flagged here are not implicitly safe. They are either not yet in our database, or fall outside our inclusion scope. Use the checker below to surface any medication, and submit a missing item if you take something we have not catalogued.
How we grade severity, choose what's in scope, and what we exclude.
Every call on this page is reasoned. We publish the full rubric for severity tiers, the medication inclusion logic, the evidence grades we accept, and what we deliberately leave out. About three thousand words. Worth reading once if you use this tool more than occasionally.
Read the full methodologyWant this checked across everything you take?
This page checks the pairs you enter. The personalised Distil report goes further:
- the same graded, cited interaction check across your whole stack, not just the pairs you thought to type in
- where your current routine may be leaving you short of your goals
- the evidence-backed compounds worth adding, and the ones worth dropping
It's a paid report: £79, or £49 for the first 25 customers. The interactions check is one section of it, and you can read a real one in full before you buy.
See a real sample reportSomething missing?
If a supplement or medication you take isn't in our autocomplete, tell us. We go through what people flag every week and add what's missing.