By KiddieDaily Editors · 2026-06-29 · 2 min read · 1 source

Glucosamine supplements may speed memory loss from Alzheimer’s, new research shows

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People with Alzheimer’s disease who took the common supplement glucosamine were 25% more likely to die within five years than those who didn’t.

That’s the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I published in the journal Nature Metabolism. Glucosamine is a sugar molecule that’s sold over the counter as a remedy for joint pain and arthritis. More than 40 million Americans take it each year.

We found that glucosamine also affected people in the earliest stage of memory loss, a condition called mild cognitive impairment. People in this early stage of dementia who were taking glucosamine were 25% more likely to progress to full Alzheimer’s. Our analysis of patients with Alzheimer’s disease was based on anonymized medical records from the University of Florida Health system.

We included 24,000 patients with dementia and 41,000 with mild cognitive impairment, comparing people who took glucosamine with those who didn’t. We then conducted experiments in mice engineered to have Alzheimer’s-like symptoms to identify the potential mechanism behind how glucosamine may affect the brain. We found that blocking the enzyme that makes sugars like glucosamine improved dementia symptoms in mice.

In contrast, feeding those same mice glucosamine made memory loss worse. Healthy mice given the same supplement showed no effect. The Food and Drug Administration classifies glucosamine as a dietary supplement, not a prescription drug.

As a result, anyone can buy it over the counter without seeing a doctor. Glucosamine is an amino sugar. Composed of glucose and an amino acid called glutamine, these molecules are used by the body to build new cells.

Because glucosamine is not considered an essential nutrient, glucosamine deficiency is not a recognized condition. However, people take the supplement based on anecdotal reports that it improves joint health, especially in the knees. For more than a decade, my team and I at the University of Florida have studied how the brain uses and processes sugar and what goes wrong with that chemistry in people who have Alzheimer’s disease.

A lesser-known problem associated with Alzheimer’s disease is that brain cells and proteins build up extra sugar coatings. Brain cells and proteins normally carry short chains of sugar on their surface called N-glycans. These sugars guide a newly made protein into its three-dimensional shape and help it attach to other proteins it works with.

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