Pet glucosamine products fail

If you're not already familiar with the work of ConsumerLab, you should get to know them and consider forking over the very reasonable subscription fee. They regularly quality test nutraceutical and herbal supplements and have reported some pretty startling results, such as lead contamination in common pet multivitamin products (http://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/multivitamin_multimineral_supplements/multivitamins/) and mold in a probiotic product (http://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/Probiotic_Supplements_Including_Lactobacillus_acidophilus_Bifidobacterium_and_Others/Probiotics/#results). The manufacturers generally responded with reasons why the testing was inaccurate or irrelevant. Whatever. But please note that by the time the dust settled, those manufacturers likely corrected those problems, so you can view negative ConsumerLab reports as wake-up calls.

The most recent is an updated review of glucosamine/chondroitin products for people and pets. Most of the products (including Cosequin which had been found to have deficiencies in a previous review) tested fine.

4 pet products did not past muster, however. One product contained only 6% of the claimed glucosamine and 15.9% of the claimed chondroitin. Not to mention that each treat only claimed to have 13.6 mg of glucosamine, which is enough to treat a 1 lb pet daily.

Another contained only 17% of the claimed chondroitin. A third product contained only 15.9% of claimed chondroitin. Another contained only 5.4% of claimed chondroitin.

I note that at least 3 of the companies with approved products are members of the National Animal Supplement Council (www.nasc.cc). None of the non-approved products come from NASC members. I'm just sayin.....

ADDENDUM: I posted the names of the products that failed and passed, but heard from ConsumerLab that those results are copyrighted. They wrote that posting these products publicly impacts their ability to collect subscription fees and conduct research. I understand that and have removed their names, and would again encourage everyone to subscribe - the rate is about $30/year and you would be pretty surprised at what you'll learn about over the counter products that you might think are good quality!