Glucosamine is an amino-monosaccharide and one of the basic constituents of the disaccharide units of the articular cartilage glycosaminoglycans. Glucosamine has been included in some supplements for athletes, especially runners and triathletes, to protect their joints against some injures and also to treat symptoms of osteoarthritis in the temporomandibular joint. Objectives: Examine the differences in the proteoglycan content comparing rats with osteoarthritis under no treatment and rats with osteoarthritis treated with glucosamine. Methods: Sixteen male Wistar rats aging 16 months old (32 joints) were divided in two groups. The experimental group received daily, oral 18 mg/ml glucosamine for 21 days and the control group received the same volume of water only. The joints were dissected, prefixed in 4% neutral formalin for 24h, and decalcified in a solution of 7% EDTA, in 4% of formalin buffered with 0.1M phosphate, pH 7.4 during 2 months. After being washed, the joint was routinely dehydrated, cleared, and embedded in paraffin. All 7 mm-thick histological sections were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and also alcian blue (AB) pH 2.5 for the demonstration of cartilage cells and their specific matrix proteoglycans, respectively . AB staining intensity was measured in the articular surface of the temporomandibular joint in histologically defined zone in each section using a X10 objective. Results: The articular cartilage of the experimental group showed an increase of 22% on the intensity of AB staining when compare with the control group. The proteoglycan content of the experimental group therefore was affected by the glucosamine supplements. Conclusions: The oral administration of glucosamine can stimulate the synthetic activity of chondrocytes, which declines with age, and therefore can offer a chondro protector effect in cartilage from aged animals.

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