July 1st, 2008
Costco patent medicine works?
This is not a scientific or news story, but a personal one. (Picture from Costco.com.)
I had not focused on chondroitin or glucosamine as anything but 21st century patent medicines until a month ago, when a friend my age, who works as a waiter, insisted it was a wonder.
He said he couldn’t do his job without it. Not at 53, lugging trays of food back-and-forth, hauling ice. Waiting table is a young man’s game.
My friend hit me at the right time. My left knee had been balky for months. I had tried resting it, but it was coming along slowly. It had kept me off my bike all spring and I was ready for a quick fix.
So when I found a bottle of the stuff at Costco that weekend, I grabbed it. I had no expectations.
Well, it worked a treat. The knee pain disappeared and it didn’t come back. I’m working out harder than ever and all my pains are in my muscles, not the joints.
Then I noticed my old dog going a bit slow. After a long walk he limped badly, and could barely get up the steps. He’s a 12 year old shepherd mix and you hate to see them suffer, you know?
Then last weekend, feeling frisky myself, I went on a neighborhood wine stroll, a fund-raiser for a good cause. One of the later stops, when I could no longer safely tell my reds from my whites, was at a pet store.
The place was frantic with tipplers, so I moseyed to the back of the shop and pretended to peruse. What should I see but a big bag of senior dog food containing (you guessed it) my old friends chondroitin and glucosamine.
When I sobered up I came back and bought a small bag. I mixed it in the old dog’s food. Guess who’s frisky now?
I don’t know if this means anything. Maybe it’s all psychosomatic. The Mayo Clinic insists that the kind of glucosamine I was taking may be totally ineffective.
Maybe it’s all a placebo effect, but placebos can be powerful. Millions and millions of people are depending on patent drugs just like this right now, in lieu of following doctors’ advice they can’t afford.
This era reminds me a lot of the 1890s in that respect, the patent medicine age which gave us, among other things, Dr Pepper. Can you put chondroitin in a sugary soda?
Maybe we could call it Dr. Costco.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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