Chondroitin Sulfate
Of 1,235 on-market chondroitin sulfate products in the January 2026 DSLD dump, the median declared dose is 478 mg, and 72.2% list unspecified/undisclosed form as the primary form.
Form share
Of 1,222 products with an identifiable primary form, here is the share held by each form of Chondroitin Sulfate on the market today.
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| Form | Quality tier | n | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| unspecified/undisclosed form | Unrated | 882 | 72.2% |
| Sodium Chondroitin Sulfate | Unrated | 249 | 20.4% |
| Bovine-source chondroitin sulfate (bovine cartilage) | Unrated | 54 | 4.4% |
| Marine / shark-source chondroitin sulfate | Unrated | 23 | 1.9% |
| Calcium Chondroitin Sulfate | Unrated | 14 | 1.1% |
Form share over time
Entry-year breakdown of the top forms, 2012–2025.
Dose distribution
Deciles of declared dose per serving (mg), among 1,010 products with a disclosed amount.
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- 17.0% of products fall below the fairy-dust threshold (160 mg, 20% of the studied low dose).
- 17.7% of products don't disclose an amount because Chondroitin Sulfate is declared inside a proprietary blend.
Where does your dose rank?
Enter a per-serving dose (mg) to see exactly how it compares to the 1,010 on-market chondroitin sulfate products with a disclosed amount. The chart above groups doses into deciles; this looks up the exact percentile for one number.
By dosage form
By target group
Top brands
Search interest over time
How often people search for chondroitin sulfate on Google, US only, the last 5 years. This is public interest, not DSLD label data — a spike here doesn't necessarily line up with anything on this page, and Google's own index (100 = that term's peak popularity in the chosen window) is relative, not an absolute search-volume count.
Or see this search directly on trends.google.com.
Forms explained
Label discloses only "Chondroitin Sulfate" with no salt or animal/marine source.
The most common salt on labels; the positive STOPP trial used chondroitin 4&6 sulfate 800 mg/day but the abstract does not state the salt, and no human study compared sodium vs calcium salts, so it is not ranked.
Source: Kahan A et al. 2009, Arthritis Rheum 60(2):524-533, PMID 19180484
Minority salt form; no human comparison against the sodium salt was found, so it is not ranked.
Animal-source descriptor (sulfation pattern differs by source) with no verified human efficacy or absorption comparison between sources, so it is not ranked.
Marine descriptor; no verified human efficacy or absorption comparison against bovine or other sources, so it is not ranked.
Reference values
- RDA (adult): not established — Glycosaminoglycan, not an essential nutrient; no DRI exists.
- Tolerable Upper Intake Level (adult): not established — Not established. Cochrane review (43 RCTs, 4,962 chondroitin-treated participants) found lower odds of serious adverse events vs control (Peto OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.19-0.82; 6 trials) and no significant excess of adverse events or withdrawals (PMID 25629804).
- Studied clinical dose range: 800–1200 mg
- Kahan A et al. 2009 (STOPP), Arthritis Rheum 60(2):524-533, PMID 19180484 -- double-blind RCT, n=622 knee OA, chondroitin 4&6 sulfate 800 mg/day x2 years; less minimum joint-space-width loss (-0.07 vs -0.31 mm, P<0.0001) and faster pain improvement vs placebo. Clegg DO et al. 2006 (GAIT), N Engl J Med 354(8):795-808, PMID 16495392 -- n=1,583, chondroitin sulfate 1200 mg/day x24 weeks; NOT significantly better than placebo for 20% pain reduction overall (+5.3 percentage points, P=0.17). Fransen M et al. 2015 (LEGS), Ann Rheum Dis 74(5):851-858, PMID 24395557 -- n=605, chondroitin sulfate 800 mg/day alone x2 years: no significant structural or pain effect (only the glucosamine+chondroitin combination reduced joint-space narrowing, by 0.10 mm, P=0.046). Pooled: Singh JA et al. 2015, Cochrane Database Syst Rev 1:CD005614, PMID 25629804 -- 43 RCTs, small-to-moderate short-term pain benefit, mostly low-quality evidence.
- Note: Efficacy evidence is genuinely mixed (positive STOPP and Cochrane short-term pain result; negative GAIT and LEGS single-agent arms), and the positive trials used pharmaceutical-grade product, which retail labels do not distinguish. Rows reported in grams are normalized to mg by the matcher. Combination rows such as "Chondroitin/MSM Complex" or "Glucosamine Chondroitin Complex" declare the weight of a multi-ingredient complex and are NOT aliases; a dry run confirmed they stay unmatched (they are far longer than any alias, which keeps the fuzzy score below the 92 threshold), so complex weight is never counted as chondroitin. Misspellings (Chrondroitin, Chondrotin) match by fuzzy and are flagged needs_review.