The Cartilage Guide
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02

Supplements

13 entries

Everything swallowed in capsule or powder form with a plausible claim on cartilage — what the trials used, at what dose, and how strong the evidence actually is.

Collagen & building blocks

  • Collagen peptidesDose, timing with vitamin C, and the absorption questionStrong
  • Undenatured type II collagen (UC-II)40 mg, an immune mechanism, and one company's trialsPromising

Vitamins & cofactors

  • Vitamin DThe rare topic where the famous trials are the null onesPromising
  • Vitamin K2 (MK-4 / MK-7)Strong cohort signal, elegant mechanism — zero K2 joint trialsPromising
  • CreatineHelps the muscle around the joint — when you train, not instead of itPromising
  • TMG / betaineA methyl donor with mouse-cartilage data and zero human joint trialsPreclinical
  • NMN / NAD+ precursorsReal chondrocyte biology, growing rodent data, no human joint trialsPreclinical

Anti-inflammatories

  • Curcumin / turmeric extractMatches NSAIDs on pain in trials — and did nothing on MRIPromising
  • Boswellia serrataConsistent trials, fast onset — nearly all run by the manufacturerPromising
  • MSM (methylsulfonylmethane)Three small positive trials, and even the authors hedgePromising

Minerals & other

  • Glucosamine ± chondroitinDecades of trials, and the results split cleanly by who paidPromising
  • Oral hyaluronic acidThirteen positive trials, mostly written by the people selling itPromising
  • Eggshell membrane (NEM)One small trial, one biomarker signal, one company behind all of itPromising

In this section

  • Collagen & building blocks
  • Vitamins & cofactors
  • Anti-inflammatories
  • Minerals & other

How to read the tags.

Strong — multiple RCTs. Promising — early human trials. Preclinical — animal / in-vitro. Anecdotal — community reports. Not supported — trials show no meaningful benefit.

Related: Foods & Nutrition for the whole-food routes to the same building blocks.

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