Is Glucosamine Worthless?

Does glucosamine work? How does glucosamine work?
Glucosamine has been used recently to treat arthritis. The idea is that since glucosamine makes up a large part of your cartilage, you can restore the natural health of your cartilage, which protects your bones from grinding against each other. But if you knew basic biochemistry and digestion, you'd think twice.

Glucosamine is comprised of two things - a glucose, and an amino acid (hence glucos-amine). 

Really, it's not that hard for your body to make. The NH2 is the amine part. The rest is glucose.

Glucose is everywhere in your blood. It's what your body gets from food to give you energy. There's no shortage of that there, unless you're starving or a diabetic.

Amine is everywhere throughout your entire body. It is what makes up all your amino acids, which entirely comprise your cell proteins. Enzymes, neurotransmitters, receptors, pretty much anything that your cell makes that directly does something is made up of amino acids. 

So there's no shortage of glucose, and no shortage of amines. Your body can get these easily through food, and can break them down from larger molecules. In fact, that's the only way your body survives. If your body can't do that well, you're dying.

In addition, when you digest food or drugs, your body is pretty good at breaking down a lot of it into its

Is Glucosamine Worthless?

Glucosamine has been used recently to treat arthritis. The idea is that since glucosamine makes up a large part of your cartilage, you can restore the natural health of your cartilage, which protects your bones from grinding against each other. But if you knew basic biochemistry and digestion, you'd think twice.

Glucosamine doesn't work

Glucosamine is comprised of two things - a glucose, and an amine (hence glucos-amine). 

Really, it's not that hard for your body to make. The NH2 is the amine.

Glucose is everywhere in your blood. It's what your body gets from food to give you energy. There's no shortage of that there, unless you're starving or a diabetic.

Amine is everywhere throughout your entire body. It is what makes up all your amino acids, which entirely

Is Emergen-C just plain Stupidit-E?

Honestly, I don't get the hype over this product.
Emergen-C doesn't work
Yes, Vitamin C is great for the body. Yes, Vitamin C boosts the immune system. Yes, Vitamin C can even cure allergies.
Emergen-C sucks Emergen-C sucks Emergen-C doesn't work
But drinking one gram of Vitamin C is little more than taking a spoonful of sugar. First of all, one gram of Vitamin C is hardly enough to do anything. Most of us are malnourished when it comes to Vitamin C anyway, because we're chronically Vitamin-C deprived, such that we really need at least 2-3 grams per day...even when we're healthy. (See here as to why we need far beyond the National Academy of Science's recommended dosage of 60 mg)

Second, I'm sure it tastes great and all when you're sick - but there's hardly any health benefit! It's much more cost-effective AND health-effective to get a bottle of chewable Vitamin C 500 mg tablets and munch on those all day.

In fact, even the company has no faith in their product. Their website says:

the Danger of Bottled Water

Bottled water comes with an implied guarantee - this water is clean. But is it really?

Yes, the water is probably going to be free of the usual environmental pollutants. Surprisingly, tap water has more pollutants than you might think. For example, a recent study showed that hexavalent chromium, the cancer-causing pollutant in the movie about Erin Brockovich, is actually in pretty high levels across the United States. Stories like these lend a hand to bottled water.

On the other hand, plastic has a polluting effect on its own in water. Plastic actually sheds at the biochemical level, releasing molecules that are similar in shape to estrogen into the water. These molecules are called Bisphenol-A, or BPA. Your body has hormone receptors, which basically touch hormones, and make some activations into the cell. If a hormone is a key to car, then the hormone receptor is the keyhole that can start up your car's engine.

Bill Nye the Science Guy

It's come to my attention that Bill Nye, aka the Science Guy, has been going around the nation talking about climate change. Has anybody bought tickets to see his exhibit called ClimateLab, or his talks?

What's interesting about Bill Nye is that he was originally a mechanical engineering major and received a BS at Cornell, under the politically radical Carl Sagan. He later worked in the aeronautics industry as a consultant.

If you check out Bill Nye's website, you'll find that he's under fire for some of his comments on climate change. Which got me thinking about his qualifications.

Public Service Announcement - Entrecard is a Scam

I found a website that claimed to help provide more traffic to a person's website. For free.

Unfortunately, like most free services, it was simply a scam. Instead of sending websurfers to your website, it gets free ad space by requiring you to put your "electronic business card" on your website. It uses that space instead to advertise their own service. They all work like a ponzi scheme - the more you drop your "electronic business card" into the comments of other people's websites and blogs, the more points you earn, which allow you to access more traffic.

For more detailed blogposts on this, check these blogs:

http://businessphereconsulting.com/is-entrecard-making-a-joke-on-us-by-injecting-cpc-ads-into-our-inbox/
http://natespost.com/index.php/entrecard-scam-mongo-credits/

If you have a website or a blog, I would encourage you to spread the word on this little scam. Thank you!