BILLINGS (LEE) -- Every Valentine's Day, Christmas and birthday, Bonnie Kellison unwraps the same gift from her husband -- a case of Joint Juice.

"I love it," said Kellison, a Billings insurance agent who suffers from arthritis. "There's always a case of it in the fridge. I will never be without it."

The fruit-flavored concoction, which comes in 8-ounce aluminum cans, contains glucosamine, a dietary supplement that claims to ease arthritis pain.

Kellison drinks at least one can of Joint Juice a day.

"Since I got on it, my knees don't hurt like they did," she said. "I can go up and down (stairs) like a normal person."

She plans to keep drinking the stuff, despite a recent study that found glucosamine and chondroitin, another popular supplement used for arthritis pain, have little or no effect.

"That study didn't bother me," said Betty Spoonemore, a Billings resident who drinks Joint Juice to ease her aching hands. "It's like every other thing. They said eggs aren't good for you, and now they are. Or chocolate was and now it isn't. I don't judge what I do based on the studies that come out. I don't take it too seriously."

The federally funded study examined more than 1,500 people suffering from arthritis-related knee pain who took glucosamine, chondroitin, a combination of both or a placebo for six months. Another group in the study took Celebrex, a prescription drug approved for arthritis pain.

People in the Celebrex category experienced a significant reduction in pain, but most of those who took glucosamine or chondroitin -- or both -- did not.

A small subset of study participants who suffered from more severe pain than the others and who took the combination supplement did report less pain, said Dr. Joyce Williams, a physician with the Arthritis & Osteoporosis Center in Billings.

But patients in the study were also allowed to take large amounts of acetaminophen -- an over-the-counter medication that is known to ease arthritis pain -- and it's possible that those with more pain took more acetaminophen.

In other words, Williams said, it is unclear whether acetaminophen or glucosamine and chondroitin reduced those participants' pain.

In addition, people in the study took a slightly different configuration of glucosamine than is commonly used in the United States, said Dr. Enrico Arguelles, who also works at the Arthritis & Osteoporosis Center.

Arguelles said it is unknown if the glucosamine in the study works the same way as the glucosamine consumed by most Americans.

Despite its faults, the study, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, had the best design of all the arthritis pain supplement studies out there, said Dr. Susan English, a rheumatologist at Billings Clinic.

And despite its apparent absence of results, it provided doctors with some very important information.

While the supplements were not proved to help people with arthritis pain, they weren't shown to harm them, either.

"If you've tried it and really feel it's beneficial -- fine, continue to take it," English said. "If you haven't, it's probably worth a try I do think that for some people it's of benefit."

"We feel more comfortable saying go ahead and take it because there are no side affects," Arguelles said.

Dietary supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and some, such as the weight-loss pill ephedra, can have dangerous side affects.

Two years ago, the FDA banned ephedra in the United States over concerns about dangerous side affects.

But glucosamine and chondroitin apparently do not do any harm, and, if a patient believes the supplements work, Arguelles and Williams see no reason to tell him or her not to use them.

"It still doesn't totally answer all the questions," Arguelles said. "But the most important thing is you yourself. You are an experiment of one. Whether it's a placebo effect or real, it works. How can you tell a patient for whom something is working to stop taking it?"

That's good enough for Bill Gloor, a program manager in Billings for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. A longtime arthritis sufferer, Gloor takes a cornucopia of prescription medications, vitamins and other dietary supplements to keep his body in working order.

He added a chondroitin/glucosamine pill to the mix more than a decade ago on the advice of an orthopedic surgeon.

"At the time, he said we think it helps and we know it doesn't hurt," Gloor said.

Two of the 21 pills Gloor gulps down every morning -- after he spends two hours stretching his muscles and loosening his joints -- are chondroitin/glucosamine supplements.

"This is not a panacea," he said of the pills. "Does it make a difference? It probably makes a 1 or 2 percent difference. As long as I can afford it, I'll continue."

Contact Diane Cochran at dcochran@billingsgazette.com or 657-1287.

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