Unfortunately, whenever the mechanism of action is multivariate, poorly controlled, and produces effects anyways, it gets written off as "only placebo efffect". For decades, we didn;t know how aspirin worked; it was written off as placebo effect, cus it didn;t help all kinds of pain in all kinds of patients. Then we identified the cyclooxygenase chains, and discovered that aspirin is a COX 1 inhibitor.
Is it all placebo? No. Is it going to work on all patients, all the time? No. No drug does that; capping on something because it doesn't is sorta silly.
For the osteoporosis: Calcium is allowed to be leached from bone to buffer bloodstreams, made acidic by leaky gut syndromes that allow acidic GI contents to enter the bloodstream and muck up the plumbing. Bump up your dietary fiber, add a chelated cal-mag supplement, and drink more water -- preferably with some Hawaiian blue-green algae or shilajit once in a while, and you'll substantially reduce the risks, prevalence, and manifestation of osteoporosis.
And get kettlebells -- nutritional changes and weight-bearing exercise are the two things that research keeps supporting as being the best solutions for bone density issues. The meds have side-effects for a reason; they act on your whole body, not just on the disease process.
That being said, I'd pass on the glucosamine: too much cost for too little benefit. Switch to an alkaline foods diet, and do some light weight training a couple times a week.
And, if you want some enjoyable reading, get a couple books by Majid Ali, M.D., and learn about the effects of state change and expectation on the electrophysiologic events that precede both injury to tissues, and episodes of recovery/healing/wellness, and the link to dietary changes on systemic issues.
D.
