Shark Cartilage Supplements Info

Like many new supplements, shark cartilage pills and supplements gained quick notoriety due to its unique nature and purported benefits. This is not uncommon with new supplements and eager and perhaps greedy supplement companies seeks to capitalize on such unique properties and consequently either embellish a supplement's capability or outright lie about its supposed benefits.

Shark-cartilage supplements appear to be just such a case. Recent research has validated the suspicion that its claims are grossly exaggerated.  

Here's a sampling. According to the Cancer Treatment Research Foundation, in a study conducted with 47 patients with advanced cancer, there was no benefit or improvement or retrogression of the cancer. To answer the question, "what are the benefits of shark pills?" Purported benefits: a potent anti-cancer agent with a number of cancers including, breast, colorectal and others.

The reality? Mayo Clinic oncologist Charles L. Loprinzi, M.D. and his colleagues conduced a placebo-controlled, double-blind and randomized study -- the results?

"Shark cartilage did not demonstrate any efficacy in patients with advanced breast or colorectal cancers."

Let's continue our discussion of the clinical studies regarding shark cartilage. In another clinical trial published in the July 1, 2005 peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, namely Cancer, the study found there was "no difference in overall survival or quality of life between patients who received shark-cartilage and those who received a placebo."

How did shark supplements come upon the supplement and health scene? After a television news magazine aired a health segment in 1993 showing cancer patients with advanced cancer in Cuba who were allegedly experiencing remission due to treatment with shark-cartilage products or pills.

After clinical experimentation, it was found that shark cartilage has the "modest ability to slow the growth of new blood vessels in laboratory cell cultures and in animals."

The results of that study were never published in peer-reviewed medical journals and the National Cancer Institute termed the results of the Cuban study as "incomplete and unimpressive." Lastly, according to Medical Study News, Monday May 23, 2005 review, when discussing the Mayo Clinic study,

"There was no suggestion that shark cartilage caused any improvement in overall survival nor any significant improvement in quality of life. In fact, some quality of life measurements tended to worsen among patients treated with shark cartilage."

Recommendation on Shark Pills

Avoid them. They do not appear to benefit human beings' physiology in any way. We recommend taking other nutrients or supplements for improving your health. However, if you are set on taking shark cartilage pills and supplements, be careful that the shark cartilage capsules don't have any fillers or additives such as sucrose (sugar), starch, gluten, silica (sand) or any other artificial colors, dyes, or flavors.

Instead of taking shark-cartilage tablets, we recommend a multivitamin supplement that is pharmaceutical grade quality produced at GMP compliant facilities. These type of facilities guarantee supplements made without contaminants. Supplement fraud is rampant and many supplements even have contaminants in them. I also recommend you purchase supplements that have enteric coating as this preserves the multivitamin's potency while it is in the stomach and allows it to be broken down in the upper intestine and then assimilated into the bloodstream.

(To find out what I take and why, go to my What I Take & Why web page.) If you'd like to know what supplement we use in lieu of vitamins made from sharks, a multivitamin that also meets all of the recommended criteria recommended on this page and site and is pharmaceutical-grade quality, click here for more information.

I hope this shark cartilage supplement information has been of use to you.

Yours in health, hope, and harmony,
Nutritional-Supplement-Bible.com