Which Osteo Bi-Flex Is Best?
Osteo Bi-Flex Side Effects Steal the Show
This might be one of the rare cases in supplement reviews where the issue is having too much of a good thing. Osteo Bi-Flex uses solid, proven ingredients that have well-documented benefits for joint health. However, the problem lies in the dosages—many of them are simply too high, which leads to significant side effects for a notable number of users.
One of the primary culprits is the heavy dose of glucosamine. While glucosamine is effective for joint health, consuming it in amounts above 1,000 mg can cause swelling and other adverse effects. Osteo Bi-Flex contains 1,500 mg of glucosamine HCl, and many verified customers have reported issues such as severe swelling, with some stating they’ve been sidelined for weeks waiting for the effects to subside.
For this reason, it’s not advisable to take Osteo Bi-Flex unless you’ve already determined that you tolerate glucosamine HCl well. If you still want to try it, you might consider taking only one pill per serving (instead of the recommended two) for a few days to test your tolerance. Alternatively, you could opt for a different joint supplement entirely. These concerns apply to both Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength and Osteo Bi-Flex Joint Care, as both products use the same glucosamine dosage.
Variations of Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength
Osteo Bi-Flex Triple Strength comes in multiple variations, each with different combinations of vitamins and minerals. However, most of these added nutrients are included in such small amounts that they make little to no difference in effectiveness.
The product also includes additional ingredients like MSM and chondroitin, but the combined dose of these two is only 275 mg—far below the effective levels required. For MSM, for instance, research suggests that dosages need to be at least 10 times higher to show meaningful benefits. As a result, we don’t typically recommend Osteo Bi-Flex unless you’re someone who responds particularly well to the type of glucosamine it contains.
Instead, we generally suggest FlexAgain, which tops most rankings for joint supplements. FlexAgain avoids the issues with glucosamine by using a more moderate dose alongside bromelain, which is equally effective but better tolerated. FlexAgain also aligns with the latest research, while larger brands like Osteo Bi-Flex are slower to update their formulas due to existing inventory constraints.
Customer Reviews of Osteo Bi-Flex
Customer reviews for Osteo Bi-Flex are polarizing, with little middle ground. Those who don’t experience severe side effects often rate it highly and find it effective. However, for about half of the users, the side effects overshadow any potential benefits.
Most negative reviews highlight either the side effects or the product’s lack of efficacy. Swelling and digestive discomfort are common complaints among dissatisfied users.
To minimize your risk of side effects, it’s best to start with a lower dose of glucosamine to see how your body reacts before trying Osteo Bi-Flex at full strength.
Osteo Bi-Flex vs. Relief Factor (The Market Leader)
When comparing Osteo Bi-Flex to Relief Factor, it’s clear that Osteo Bi-Flex paired with an omega-3 supplement can essentially replicate—and even outperform—Relief Factor in terms of ingredients. However, this only holds true if you’re not among the many users who experience side effects from the high dose of glucosamine in Osteo Bi-Flex.
If you want to play it safe, Relief Factor is a more reliable starting point as it tends to have fewer reported side effects. An even better option would be FlexAgain, which includes all the ingredients found in Relief Factor but at higher, more effective doses, without the risk of overloading on glucosamine.
Osteo Bi Flex Review FAQ
Common questions we came across whilst researching our osteo biflex review
Osteo bi flex should be effective for mild cases of joint pain. Whilst it won’t be effective for everyone the ingredients are well dosed and backed by multiple studies.
Does osteo bi flex cause weight gain?
Glucosamine in high doses can cause fluctuations in appetite, but it seems as likely to cause weight loss as weight gain. The jury is out on this one. But, as long as you don’t change your eating habits dramatically it shouldn’t be an issue.
Osteo Bi Flex Ingredients
There are a lot of different versions of Osteo Bi Flex, so we’ll do our best to cover off the most popular here.
Starting with the ingredients that are common across most all of the Osteo Bi Flex products.
Glucosamine HCL is both one of the most effective ingredients in Osteo bi flex and the one that causes the most problems. Meta analysis of multiple studies suggest that it is beneficial for a subset of people [1], but does not work for everyone. And to top it off side effects we’re present in many cases, most mild, but there were some severe ones as we have reffered to several times throughout our Osteo bi flex review. Glucosamine HCL is the purer and stronger form of Glucosamine, which is normally supplemented as a sulphate, a dosage of glucosamine sulphate at 1500mg would be fine and is standard, but HCL is around 4 times purer. This does lead to a slight increase in the supplements performance for some people, but it is also the reason for a lot of the Osteo Bi Flex side effects complaints.
Boswellia is marked as an effective anti inflammatory [2] it’s included in most of the best joint supplements, and it’s well tolerated across the board, Osteo bi flex get the dosage right, no complaints here.
Now we’ll get onto the ingredients that are only present in OsteoBiFlex Triple Stregnth.
Chrondroitin/MSM these are good ingredients, but the Chrondroitin has a similar effect to the glucosamine, and it makes it a bit redundant when you already have so much glucosamine. The other catch is we’d have liked to have seen a higher dosage as 275mg of the two combined is a little low if they’re going to be included. With MSM needing to dosed 10X more at least.
Lastly we have the sections which will vary wildly between the different types of Osteo Bi Flex, the vitamin blends
The most popular vitamin blend with Osteo Bi Flex customers is ( Vitamin C, Manganese & Sodium) and that’s less than ideal to say the least. This blend is a bit of a failure, we’d typically expect to see vitamin D in a joint supplement as it’s a common deficiency (nearly half of all Americans) and a lack of it causes joint pain. The vitamins included will help, but far less than a vitamin D supplement would[3].
That said there is a version which contains vitamin D3, but this only has vitamin D3 in it and not the vitamin C or Manganese which have been shown to be effective for helping joint pain particularly vitamin C for arthritis[4].
Perhaps most unfortunately however, is that when they looked at additional vitamins they didn’t look at vitamin K which has been shown to slow the progression of OA. A vitamin D, K and C version would’ve been much better.
Osteo Bi Flex Reviews Conclusion
Osteo Bi Flex is both a good and a bad supplement, it’s ingredients are well documented, and they are at the ideal doses, it’s just unfortunate that a couple of them can cause nasty side effects. We wouldn’t recommend starting taking osteo bi flex triple strength without having had similar products at lower strength in the past or without talking to your clinician first.
There are other well backed ingredients that have similar effects, curucumin, resvertarol and others, which don’t have the risks of side effects so we would recommend that you try something that uses those first.
In short, get FlexAgain first instead.
| Criteria | Rating |
| Ingredients | 8/10 |
| Pain Relief | 8/10 |
| Joint Health | 8/10 |
| Swelling | 8/10 or 1/10 |
| Value | 7/10 |
| Recommended | 7/10 or 1/10 |
References
1 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686334/
2 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7368679/
3 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372953/
4 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8543556/
5 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7281970/