Vet offers hope for joint-pain sufferers

McClatchy Newspapers

Published Sunday, January 25, 2009

Eight years ago, Scott Pierce, a horse doctor, began experimenting with hyaluronic acid as an oral supplement for horses. Veterinarians have traditionally injected the acid into horse joints to treat pain and swelling.

Pierce concocted a paste with the acid. The oral supplement worked so well on horses that his customers asked for a version for their aging dogs, who could no longer jump into farm trucks. They liked that so much they asked for a version for themselves, Pierce said.

Today, Pierce’s experiments are a company, Vetix Inc. In 2008, Vetix sold between $5 million and $6 million in supplements. The supplements are for horses, dogs and humans.

Supplements are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which means that the products aren’t rigorously tested to see how well they work the way prescription drugs are.

But the products are popular, and, according to the Nutritional Business Journal’s Supplement Business Report, supplements generated $23.4 billion in sales in 2007. The journal expects the market to grow by 4 percent a year.

Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring substance in the body, found in large joints in humans. Veterinarians have used it for years, injecting it directly into the joints, and human doctors began doing the same thing more recently.

But injection in humans isn’t always successful, said Christian Lattermann, a professor of sports medicine at the University of Kentucky.

Studies have shown that the injections work in 60 percent to 70 percent of patients.

Studies in humans of other oral hyaluronic products show that a very small amount of the substance ends up in the joints, Lattermann said. There is no scientific evidence that the supplements work, he said.

"That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work," he said. "We don’t have any true scientific evidence."

There are probably people who have gotten significant relief from the product, Lattermann said. But anecdotal evidence doesn’t prove that a product works.

For Pierce, the supplement business has been a successful venture. There are now more than 20 products for horses, 12 products for dogs, nine for humans and one soon-to-be-released product for cats. So far, horse supplements sell the best, followed by human ones, Pierce said.