Published November 30th 2023
Fact Checked by Dr Mark Watson
Magnesium 37.5mg – This is only 9% of your RDI, meaning that
it’s not going to do a whole lot to improve joint health, unless your mildly deficient.
And it’s magnesium oxide meaning it’s the cheapest and least bioavailable form
of magnesium possible. So, even though we said it’s 9% of your RDI, it’s more
like half that. If you consider that you can get a decent magnesium supplement
for $10 that will actually make a difference you’re better off doing just that rather
than getting it from Osteovantiv.
Now as to whether magnesium belongs in here
at all, it is true that a deficiency in magnesium can cause joint pain, [1] but,
it’s not going to do much unless you are. And considering vitamin D deficiency
can cause the same, [2] and most studies suggest that more than 50% of American’s
over 50 are deficient, the amount you need would actually fit in this capsules,
which one would’ve made more sense.
Standardized Cartilage 20mg –
As we said this is a fancy word
for type II collagen, there are a reasonable amount of studies on it’s
effectiveness for joint pain. [3] And ultimately the results have to date been
relatively inconclusive with as many studies suggesting it does nothing as
those that have found some use. There’s reasonable anecdotal evidence as a lot
of people swear by it, but as we said, this is available in a lot of cheaper
supplements. This could be the ingredient doing the heavy lifting in Osteovantiv.
Iso-Alpha Acids 300mg –
This is Osteovantiv’s selling point,
and unfortunately it’s not a great one. The hops extract is an interesting
choice, and in a better supplement would’ve probably been an interesting extra
element to include. There are some studies on it’s effectiveness for reducing
inflammation and joint pain, but most of the studies are in animals or test
tubes meaning that we don’t actually know if it has any real life implications
or if this is even within the effective dosage range for humans.
There has been ONE human trial on hops containing a standardized
amount of this extract, but it used 2 grams at a 30% standardization, this
means that the dose was double what we have in Osteovantiv. [4]. And whilst the
trial in question was small, only 57 people including the placebo group, self
reported pain levels were lower in those that took the extract. So, it’s not
that there’s no evidence at all here. But, one study isn’t really great backing
considering the ingredients we mentioned in the intro have far more.
Pros
Cons
1 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34023805/
2 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6413222/
3 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620403/
4 - https://austinpublishinggroup.com/nutrition-metabolism/fulltext/ajnm-v9-id1124.pdf