I find it difficult to believe that it has "significant" health benefits. Glucosamine has never shown significant health benefits, only minor ones: https://examine.com/supplements/glucosamine/
I find it extremely difficult to trust an all-Chinese research team on a substance heavily used in "traditional chinese medicine", for two reasons:
> Glucosamine has never shown significant health benefits, only minor ones
... This is a bit of a ridiculous argument to make when looking at the data. First of all, they only have 8 categories, only 2 of which have more than 2 studies cited. Second of all, imagine if you only studied the effects of aspirin on addiction. I'm assuming you'd find little to no effect. And if Examine had a list of addiction-related effects you'd also be like "look aspirin is weak, how can it suddenly be strong?". The listed effects on examine all have to do with pain relief which likely has little in common with the mechanism of action for lung cancer
> I find it extremely difficult to trust an all-Chinese research team
This is published in a (European) journal with an H-index of 255.[0] The journal is reputable so are you just asserting you can't trust Chinese scientists to study ingredients used in TCM?
> "TCM" is the invention of Mao
This is very false. Even the article you link only says Mao "heavily invested" in it. You know who else is heavily investing in traditional medicine? The World Health Organization. Which currently has a decades long plan to support and fund and increase the role that complementary medicines play in non-industrialized countries[1][2]
Sorry I'm not really following. Yeah Taiwan's treatment is problematic but that's a larger issue with the United Nations as a whole and not something specific to WHO...
Your concerns are valid. The IPCC reports were also heavily criticized for heavy biases in due to pressure from the US (particularly the US military). However, that doesn't mean that the IPCC reports weren't overall an incredibly useful scientific feat
Yes, like the IPCC, WHO is also susceptible to international political pressures, but I really think if you read through their plan you'd find that it's very well-cited and fairly argued.
Not sure you should reject TCM categorically. That's where we got statins from. You dont even need an Rx to lower cholesterol, just use red yeast rice - works a charm and even has the same side effects.
I don't put much stock in the reasons behind why a lot of TCM works, but dismissing the whole thing out of hand is folly, because essentially you are saying plants have no medicinal value and massage is a waste of time.
I would push for more scientific rigour within TCM to come up with better models of why some of this stuff works instead, which to the best of my understanding isn't even a particularly controversial statement in many TCM circles.
Why exactly does glucosamine only having a minor effect on pain, collagen degradation, joint function, etc. preclude it from having an effect on cancer outcomes?
Obviously this should be replicated and if not replicable, should be dismissed. But it's perplexing to dismiss it out of hand because its effects weren't strong enough for an array of other totally unrelated health outcomes.
I find it extremely difficult to trust an all-Chinese research team on a substance heavily used in "traditional chinese medicine", for two reasons:
"TCM" is the invention of Mao, who needed to look like he was doing something to provide medical care for billions: https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-med...
...and the CCP has been pushing it very heavily: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/08/31/china-is-rampin...
Or more simply put, it's utter tripe that was passed off to peasants to keep them from rioting over having essentially no healthcare system.