Elations product lineup (fresh fruit not included)
Not too long ago, a box arrived at ShrinkGeek Orbital HQ from the folks at Elations, with a few samples of their stuff. Since Mike isn’t the only one complaining about the inevitable grind toward getting old, and years of questionable behavior have been not entirely kind to my joints, I decided to give them a try. As a delivery system for glucosamine and chondroitin, Elations take a Flintstones Tablets approach (or maybe it’s Mary Poppins) – making what is usually One More Bland Or Yucky Tablet into a sweet-tasting beverage.
How well does it work? And why would you want to take glucosamine and chondroitin, anyway?
Tackling those in reverse order, glucosamine and chrondroitin are compounds found in your body that help care for the cartilage in your joints. Glucosamine is believed to be used by the body to repair damaged cartilage, and chondroitin sulfate helps draw fluid into the cartilage itself. Why all the attention to cartilage, if we’re not sharks, whose entire skeleton is made of the stuff?
In a nutshell, having creaky joints sucks. You don’t have to sound like a visit to Virtual Bubble Wrap when you get out of bed to grok this. And, unfortunately, as we get older, the cartilage (as well as the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and pretty much everything else) gradually loses its elasticity, especially without proper exercise and mobility. Osteoarthritis is one of those nagging things that folks just cope with as a fact of getting older and racking up mileage. While not overwhelmingly conclusive in clinical studies, there seems to be a fairly substantial body of anecdotal evidence that taking glucosamine and chrondroitin helps alleviate the joint discomfort osteoarthritis causes. This is especially true among runners, for whom knee pain is a prevalent complaint.
That’s where the Elations folks make their case. Their stuff makes no special claims about potency or efficacy; their approach is to make it easier to take and provide results more quickly. I can see where they’re coming from, but it’s hard to judge whether they’ve truly hit the mark.
I’ve had a bottle of glucosamine and chrondroitin tablets (generic, drug-store brand) lurking among the various other vitamins and supplements in my medicine cabinet for a while. They taste more or less like pellets of chalk that someone left in a room full of peanut butter. Not exactly delicious. Kind of hard to choke down, actually (and this is coming from a guy who dry-swallows pretty much everything, much to my better half’s horror). So merely having an improved delivery system for the supplements themselves was enough to get me interested.
Elations comes in both ready-to-drink bottles, and in little packets of drink powder that just need to be mixed into a glass of water. It’s basically Crystal Light with minerals in it. Of the three flavors I sampled, I liked the Raspberry/White Grape the most, then the Cranberry/Apple, with the Black Cherry a distant third. As I said to the Elations marketing rep who hooked us up with the test samples:
That Black Cherry flavor should come with a HazMat warning, though…. I’m not a big fan of cherry, and it was OH, HELLO, WATERED-DOWN ROBITUSSIN. *cough, cough, cough*
Your mileage may, of course, vary. Overall, though, they’re not bad, just a touch on the sweet side. If you’re sensitive to or keenly aware of the artificial sweetener they use (sucralose, a/k/a Splenda), that’s present as well.
The other selling point is that, because it’s being delivered in liquid form rather than as a capsule, your body will be able to utilize the glucosamine and chrondroitin more readily. Thus, the joint discomfort should abate more quickly. Unfortunately (or, I guess, fortunately), I wasn’t dealing with anything acute enough to really test this assertion out. Thus, it’s hard for me to say, categorically, if it delivers completely. If you’re transitioning from taking tablets already, you wouldn’t notice any big changes – essentially, if you already installed a game off of the CD-Rom, getting a patch via download to keep playing isn’t a big deal. For someone looking to begin taking glucosamine and chrondroitin, however, this might be a selling point worth considering. For all the physical abuse I may inflict on myself, I can’t say that dealing with nagging discomfort is something I would want to delay putting an end to, really.
The bottom line? Elations’ glucosamine and chondroitin supplement drinks do pretty much what they say they do, and taste okay doing it. They’re a bit more expensive than traditional tablets, but that’s a value judgment we’ll leave up to folks to make for themselves. Plus, it’s one more way to wrangle an extra glass of low-calorie liquid into your day, too.
In short, it’s an eight-ounce bottle of narrowly-purposed win.
We’d like to thank Amy Danis at Dig Communications for hooking us up with the Elations review samples (along with quite possibly the most humongous JPG I’ve ever seen 
).
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“Unfortunately (or, I guess, fortunately), I wasn’t dealing with anything acute enough to really test this assertion out.”
But I could.
Is this only available online? Or would I be able to hunt it down at the local Publix?
I will check with the folks at Elations and see what they have to say, and let you know.
According to Amy @ Elations, “You can get Elations at almost any drug, mass, or grocery stores.”
They also have a list of places that carry it on their site: http://elations.com/categories/buy-elations/storelist.php
I just found Elations at Wal-Mart – had three Cranberry/Apple so far and the taste is very good. I have arthrists in my hands, and ankle so i’m very interested to see if it brings any releif or better mobility.
Ive done martial arts for over 20 years and have ruined my knees,but the elations have gave my knees back to be. I have no pain,or soreness. They do still pop sometimes when I squat all the way to sitting on my heels.But I would tell amyone to pick a pack up and give them a try.
I’ve just had an agonizing 12 weeks with my knees. MRI showed cartilege pretty worn and water behind the knee….I’m going to give it a try starting tomorrow morning….hope I get great results as you have…..thanks for posting your comments. Prior to this severe knee pain, I loved to walk, bike and play volleyball….keeping my fingers crossed!