My knee hurts. I'm staring at the bottle of glucosamine that sits with the multivitamins and calcium on the kitchen table. I've just read a review of GAIT (Glucosamine/ chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial), which studied 1583 people with arthritic knee pain. The supplement fared no better than a placebo.

It will piss me off to give it up. I'd pop a pill in the morning and feel good about myself. When I had a painfree day I'd attribute it to the pill. I imagined the pain would be worse if I didn't use it.

I could continue swallowing them. A placebo is better than nothing. But I wasn't trained to fool myself with beliefs for which I have no evidence. In 2004 in the U.S. $730 million dollars was spent on glucosamine and chondroitin.

I don't want to be a sucker to the supplement industry.

Should I be angry at science? After all it was scientists who fed the glucosamine fad with clever theory and a few preliminary studies. Didn't Science tell me there were 48 chromosomes in each human cell... until a scientist counted more accurately and discovered only 46? Wasn't spinach packed with iron, until a scientist reviewed the early calculations and discovered an error of one decimal place? Iron now contains a tenth of what we once thought it did.

We like the security of being certain, and science is uncertain. Uncertainty leads to anxiety. I can understand why people lambaste science. What good is it if it ain't reliable?

Even scientists hate uncertainty. In the 70's a scientist discovered that lactic acid, rather than being the substance which causes pain and fatigue, is actually the fuel for muscle cells.

For 50 years scientists had believed the opposite and only lately has his work been recognized.

Living with a lack of reliability is a sacrifice scientists need to make, because for science, truth comes first, reliability second. Consistency is good, but it must not be a hiding place for comfortable false beliefs which don't serve us in the long run.

I bet the health food store sells Placebo pills. And after all, placebos have been shown to be from 7 to 30% affective for all kinds of ailments. All I ask is that they be cheap. I refuse to pay big bucks for playing mind games with myself.