Eggshell membrane: a possible new natural therapeutic for joint and connective tissue disorders. Results from two open-label human clinical studies

Ruff KJ, DeVore DP, Leu MD, Robinson MA · Clinical Interventions in Aging

Participants rated pain on a 0 to 10 scale against their own baseline. In the 11-person cohort general pain fell 72.5% at 30 days (3.6 to 1.0, P=0.007) and range-of-motion pain 75.9%, with flexion up 43.7%; in the 28-person cohort pain fell 18.4% and 31.3% at 7 days in the two formulation arms and 30.2% at 30 days (P=0.0001) after the arms were merged. No adverse events were reported. Without a control group these numbers cannot be separated from placebo response.

Population

Adults 18 and over with at least three months of mild-to-moderate joint or connective-tissue pain at mixed sites (knees, hips, shoulders, lower back and others) at a single Missouri site; 11 in a single-arm cohort and 28 in a two-formulation cohort

Intervention

NEM 500 mg once daily for 4 weeks

Comparator

None (open-label, no control)

Limitations

Uncontrolled and unblinded, and the authors name the placebo effect as the obvious issue. Mixed and unspecified joint conditions, 29% dropout in the larger cohort, and registration on ClinicalTrials.gov five years after the studies ran. Sponsored by ESM Technologies; the first author is its employee and the second a paid consultant.