Both our Sport and Health products contain glucosamine, which is derived from shellfish; our Basic product does not and is an option to consider. We fully understand the potential severity of a shellfish allergy, and would like to provide you with some additional information on how the glucosamine is processed so that you can better understand if our Health and Sport products are indeed an option for you.
During the processing of shellfish into glucosamine, the shells are dried, deproteinized, and demineralized before undergoing further processing (depolymerizing and deacetylating) to form glucosamine. The important step here, for anyone with an allergy, is that the shellfish are deproteinized, which is a process that removes the protein (which is what people are allergic to) from the shells. The information in the paragraph below comes from the National Institutes of Health; you may want to review it with your allergist before taking any product with shellfish-derived glucosamine. Here’s the link to the full content: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/807.html.
Shellfish allergy: Because some glucosamine sulfate products are made from the shells of shrimp, lobsters or crabs, there is concern that glucosamine products might cause allergic reactions in people who are allergic to shellfish. But allergic reactions in people with shellfish allergy are typically caused by the meat of shellfish, not the shell. There are no reports of allergic reactions to glucosamine in people who are allergic to shellfish. There is also some information that people with shellfish allergy can safely take glucosamine products. (Source: National Institutes of Health)
We include the allergy warning on our labels to let people know about the source of our glucosamine. Our glucosamine-free products are manufactured at the same facility, which has thorough allergen control procedures in place.
There are vegetable-derived sources of glucosamine available. We do not know the reputation or quality of the available products, nor do we know of any science that demonstrates that they are equally effective.