Oral bioavailability of chondroitin sulfate (Condrosulf) and its constituents in healthy male volunteers

Volpi N · Osteoarthritis and Cartilage

The study the chondroitin field's absorption claims rest on. Plasma chondroitin sulfate rose more than 200% above a 0.3-5.3 ug/mL baseline, peaking at 2 hours. The author reports the exogenous material as absorbed 'as a high molecular mass polysaccharide together with derivatives resulting from partial depolymerization and/or desulfation' — so some of what arrives is still a polysaccharide rather than free sugars.

Population

Healthy male volunteers

Intervention

Single 4 g oral dose of bovine chondroitin sulfate (Condrosulf)

Limitations

Uncontrolled single-dose pharmacokinetics in healthy volunteers with no joint endpoint, and the group size is not given in the abstract. 4 g is three to five times a normal trial dose. Distinguishing exogenous from endogenous circulating chondroitin sulfate is the hard part of this measurement, and Jackson 2010 (pmid-19912983) reached the opposite conclusion using different methods.