Several years ago, I wrote an article for Townsend Letter called “Bias, Research and Complementary & Alternative Medicine.”1 As part of the research for that article, I looked at how various news sites reported on the 2006 glucosamine/chondroitin arthritis intervention trial (GAIT), which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.2 This multi-center, double-blind, placebo- and celecoxib-controlled study, funded by two NIH agencies, randomly assigned 1583 patients with knee pain and radiographic evidence of osteoarthritis to one of five orally administered treatments. Most of the participants had mild pain, and the combination did not show much benefit for them. For those who had moderate-to-severe knee pain, however, the combination was more effective than celecoxib: Fifty-seven of 72 (79.2%, p=0.002) in the glucosamine-chondroitin group vs. 50 (69.4%, p-0.06) in the celecoxib group had a 20% decrease in WOMAC pain score.
“Media articles and headlines about GAIT varied so greatly in tone that I had to double-check that they were talking about the same study,”1 I reported. The New York Times’ headline read “Supplements Fail to Stop Arthritis Pain, Study Says.” HealthDay News read “Glucosamine, Chondroitin Not Much Help for Arthritic Knees.” But unlike the NYT article, HealthDay News gave more attention to the subset with moderate-to-severe pain. The headline from MedPage Today said, “Glucosamine-Chondroitin Sulfate Can Ease Severe Pain.”
The GAIT coverage is not an isolated example. Over the years, I’ve learned to pretty much ignore second-hand information about medical research that runs in corporate news media; benefits about the latest pharmaceutical wunderkinds are usually oversold and effects of integrative or natural treatments are ignored or underplayed. That’s my bias. But I’ve also learned to dig deeper, read the entire article, and look at the study design. Remember that science is a process.
- Klotter J. Bias, Research, and Complementary & Alternative Medicine. Townsend Letter. 288;87-93.
- Clegg DO, et al. Glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, and the two in combination for painful knee osteoarthritis. NEJM. 2006;354(8):795.
Jule Klotter
