Abstract
Glucosamine, a naturally occurring amino monosaccharide, has been used to treat or prevent osteoarthritis in humans. Recently, we have revealed that glucosamine inhibits platelet activation in vitro. However, the effect of in vivo administration of glucosamine has not yet been clear. Recently, we have evaluated the effect of oral glucosamine administration on platelet activation in guinea pigs. Guinea pigs were orally adminis-tered with glucosamine (an average of 400 mg glucosamine/animal/day) for 22 days and thereafter platelet functions were examined.
Glucosamine-administration suppressed platelet aggregation in response to ADP, but not platelet aggregation induced by collagen. Furthermore, glucosamine-administration inhibited the ADP-induced extracellular release of ATP and production of thromboxane A2. In contrast, glucosamine did not affect the body-weights, platelet counts and bleeding time in guinea pigs after the administration.
These observations suggest that glucosamine is likely to exert an inhibitory action on platelets in vivo by suppressing platelet aggregation, ATP release, and thromboxane A2 production. Thus, glucosamine could be expected as a novel and safe anti-platelet agent.
