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"The trouble with bisphosphonates"

Posted , 6 users are following.

allison72169
allison72169

Google above-captioned title and "Health Report" for a very good 13.5-minute downloadable audio featuring the author of a new study out of Australia. She talks about bisphosphonates' ratio of benefit:risk, among other things.

 

1 like, 59 replies

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  • chris00938
    chris00938 allison72169

    Posted

    Has anyone else seen the article in The Mail today ' Hormone jabs cut bone fractures'?  Growth hormone injections reduced the risk of brittle bone fractures in older women long after treatment was stopped, a ten year study found.  They halved the fracture rate in those with osteoporosis over the period.   80 post menopausal women with the condition received a daily injection of either a placebo, a single unit of growth hormone, or a 2.5 unit dose.  After 18 months those taking the placebo halted the injections but women given the hormone had jabs for another 18 months.  Their bone density and fractures were monitored for 7 more years.  Results were compared with 120 women without osteoporosis.  Women who got the larger hormone dose still had higher bone mineral density levels than those who received the lower dose or the placebo.  The rate of fractures in the treated women with osteoporosis declined by 50 percent during the study. The findings were by researchers at Sodra Alvsborgs Hospital in Sweden and published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
    • allison72169
      allison72169 chris00938

      Posted

      Hi Chris, I've not yet read the article, though I will. I'm not surprised that hormone injections showed effectiveness against osteoporosis, as hormone replacement therapy was, I believe, the gold standard of osteoporosis treatment before bisphosphonates. Unfortunately, hormone therapy posed a level of risk for breast cancer that was generally considered unacceptable; thus the void that Big Pharma ended up trying to fill with bisphosphonates.

       

    • chris00938
      chris00938 allison72169

      Posted

      Yes, this was new to me too.  I actually typed out the whole of the article that was in The Mail today but there might be more information online.
    • chris00938
      chris00938 allison72169

      Posted

      Allison this wasn't the hormones used for menopause, but growth hormone.  Something totally different.  I wouldn't touch HRT (my mother had breast cancer and thanks to being overdosed with unopposed estrogen I had endometrial cancer) but I don't know the side effects of growth hormones either!
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