Comparing Five Treatments for Knee Osteoarthritis: Where Krill Oil Fits In

This study pooled data from 23 clinical trials to compare five different approaches to managing knee osteoarthritis pain and function: the anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib, metformin, probiotics, krill oil, and the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin. Using a statistical method called network meta-analysis, researchers ranked how well each option performed on pain scores, joint function measures, and safety.

Overall, celecoxib came out on top for general pain relief and total joint function scores, followed by glucosamine/chondroitin. However, when researchers looked specifically at the WOMAC pain subscale (a widely used measure of joint pain), krill oil ranked highest of all five options. Probiotics and metformin showed promising results in some analyses but had the most favorable safety profiles.

The researchers cautioned that confidence in many of these rankings—including those involving krill oil, probiotics, and metformin—was low or very low. This was mainly because there were few direct comparisons between these options in actual trials, and the available data had wide margins of uncertainty.