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Caption: This illustration from an 1887 book shows the fabled "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," a plant once believed to ripen into a baby sheep. The plant now shows promise for treating osteoporosis. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Usage Restrictions: None The "vegetable lamb" plant — once believed to bear fruit that ripened into a living baby sheep — produces substances that show promise in laboratory experiments as new treatments for osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease. That's the conclusion of a new study in ACS' monthly Journal of Natural Products. Young Ho Kim and colleagues point out that osteoporosis is a global health problem,...

SAN ANTONIO — Two differently designed studies found a nearly identical, roughly 30% reduction in the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women who took bisphosphonates to prevent or remediate bone loss. The results of a retrospective analysis of data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) in the United States and a case-control study conducted in Israel were presented at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. In both studies, cancer incidence was sharply lower among women prescribed bisphosphonates for low bone mineral density, suggesting that the impact of these agents may extend beyond bone. In the 151,592-patient database for...

Thursday January 21, 2010 Study: Low-Dose Birth Control Pills Decrease Bone Density in Young Women By Thaddeus M. BaklinskiSEATTLE, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new study showing a link between long-term use of oral contraceptives and a decrease in bone density in women under the age of 30 has found that the modern low-dose forms of estrogen pills have the greatest risk of harming a woman's bone density.The study, published in the January issue of Contraception Journal, measured bone mineral density (BMD) of the hip, spine, and whole body to analyze how both the duration of taking the...

Almost half of all women who use a popular injected contraceptive lose a significant amount of bone mass within two years, and researchers now say the greatest risk is to smokers, women who don’t consume enough calcium and those who have never gone through a pregnancy. A study that followed women who used the birth-control method — a shot of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, better known as DMPA or Depo-Provera, every three months — found that 45 percent of the users experienced bone mineral density losses of 5 percent or more in the hip or lower spine, researchers said. The study...

Effects of vitamin D deficiency amplified by shortage of estrogenResearchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the first conclusive evidence in men that the long-term ill effects of vitamin D deficiency are amplified by lower levels of the key sex hormone estrogen, but not testosterone. In a national study in 1010 men, to be presented Nov. 15 at the American Heart Association's (AHA) annual Scientific Sessions in Orlando, researchers say the new findings build on previous studies showing that deficiencies in vitamin D and low levels of estrogen, found naturally in differing amounts in men and...

Rates of hip fractures, an often devastating consequence of osteoporosis, have been steadily falling for two decades in Canada, a new study finds. And a similar trend occurred in the United States, researchers found. But it is not clear why. Drugs that slow the rate of bone loss may be part of the reason, but they cannot be the entire explanation, osteoporosis researchers say. And although experts can point to other possible factors — like fall prevention efforts and a heavier population — the declining rates remain a medical mystery. The new study, published Wednesday in The Journal of the...

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Two existing drugs used to treat osteoporosis may be effective in killing influenza viruses, including the new H1N1 swine flu and the H5N1 bird flu viruses, researchers in Hong Kong have found. The two drugs are pamidronate and zoledronate, which are marketed by Novartis AG under the brand names Aredia and Reclast, respectively. In their experiment, the researchers exposed human cells that had been infected with the influenza viruses to the two drugs. They observed that the drugs triggered extra production of a type of white blood cell called yd-T cells, which went on to kill...

A study found that the bones of women who drink beer regularly are stronger, making them less likely to suffer from osteoporosis. It is thought that the high level of silicon in beer slows down the thinning that leads to fractures and boosts the formation of new bone, the journal Nutrition reports. Beer is also rich in phytoestrogens, plant versions of oestrogen, which keep bones healthy. Bones are made up of a mesh of fibres, minerals, blood vessels and marrow, and healthy ones are denser with smaller spaces between the different parts. The researchers asked almost 1,700 healthy women with...

New questions have emerged about whether long-term use of bone-building drugs for osteoporosis may actually lead to weaker bones in a small number of people who use them. The concern rises mainly from a series of case reports showing a rare type of leg fracture that shears straight across the upper thighbone after little or no trauma. Fractures in this sturdy part of the bone typically result from car accidents, or in the elderly and frail. But the case reports show the unusual fracture pattern in people who have used bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates for five years or more. Some...

Researchers looking for genes that raise the risk of osteoporosis found seven different sequences associated with the bone-thinning disease, and one team found two that might predict the risk for 20 percent of people. The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet on Tuesday, may also shed light into how osteoporosis develops. A British team identified two small mutations called SNPs -- single-letter changes in the DNA code -- that predicted thinning bones. They scanned the genes of 2,094 female twins and identified a link between decreased bone mineral density and changes in genes on...

Largest, longest study ever supports screening and prevention of osteoporosis.One bone mineral density test can accurately predict a woman's chance of spinal fractures 15 years down the line, new research shows. And, according to the largest and longest prospective study of osteoporosis ever, women who had a spinal fracture at the beginning of the study had four times the risk of sustaining another fracture later on. The bottom line: "Women need to talk to their doctors about the risk of osteoporosis," according to Jane Cauley, lead author of the study and professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate...

Clinton T. Rubin knows full well that his recent results are surprising — that no one has been more taken aback than he. And he cautions that it is far too soon to leap to conclusions about humans. But still, he says, what if ... ? And no wonder, other scientists say. Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat. All he does is put...

For the first time, an osteoporosis drug has reduced deaths and prevented new fractures in elderly patients with broken hips, according to new research. Some experts called the drop in deaths "striking" but said other drugs could have a similar effect. In the study, there were 28 percent fewer deaths and 35 percent fewer fractures in the group that got a once-a-year infusion of the bone drug Reclast compared to those who got a dummy treatment. No other osteoporosis drug study published in at least 15 years has shown such a pronounced reduction in deaths, said Dr. Kenneth Lyles of...

Researchers in the Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam have created a unique way of identifying patients at risk of osteoporosis by using ordinary dental x-rays. Professor Paul F. van der Stelt and his team developed the largely automated approach to detecting the disease during a three-year, EU-funded collaboration with the Universities of Manchester, Athens, Leuven, and Malmö. They will present their findings today during the 85th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research. Osteoporosis affects almost 15% of Western women in their fifties, 22% in their sixties, and 38.5% in their seventies. As many as 70% of women...

People taking powerful antacid drugs called proton pump inhibitors face an increased risk of hip fracture, University of Pennsylvania researchers report. Common proton pump inhibitors include Aciphex, Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec and Protonix; they are often prescribed for stomach conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The report is published in the Dec. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "If you take acid-suppression medications on a chronic basis and you are 50 or older, your hip fracture risk is even higher than usual," said study author Dr.Yu-Xiao Yang, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology. "In addition,...

Cola Raises Women's Osteoporosis Risk 10.06.06, 12:00 AM ET FRIDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Cola may not be so sweet for women's bones, according to new research that suggests the beverage boosts osteoporosis risk. "Among women, cola beverages were associated with lower bone mineral density," said lead researcher Katherine Tucker, director of the Epidemiology and Dietary Assessment Program at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. There was a pretty clear dose-response, Tucker added. "Women who drink cola daily had lower bone mineral density than those who drink it only once a week,"...

In the last 10 years, millions of patients have taken a class of drugs that can prevent agonizing broken and deteriorating bones. The drugs once seemed perfectly safe and have transformed life for patients with cancer or osteoporosis. But recently there have been reports of a serious side effect: death of areas of bone in the jaw. Everyone agrees that the condition, osteonecrosis of the jaw, is an uncommon complication, but that its true incidence is not known. It is estimated that among the 500,000 American cancer patients who take the drugs because their disease is affecting their bones, 1...

Canadian Press Toronto — An osteoporosis drug has been found to reduce the incidence of invasive breast cancer in high-risk, post-menopausal women as effectively as tamoxifen, the medication considered the gold standard for warding off the disease over the last two decades. In a head-to-head study, both tamoxifen and raloxifene were found to reduce the risk of invasive breast cancer by almost 50 per cent compared with placebo — but raloxifene had far fewer serious side-effects. “This is good news for women,” Dr. Leslie Ford of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, told a teleconference Monday to announce the results of...

An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from osteoporosis, according to the National Institutes of Health. Another 34 million are considered at increased risk for getting the bone disease. A good many of those patients stand to benefit if a new osteoporosis drug from Amgen (NasdaqNM:AMGN - News) turns out to be successful. Phase two data on the investigational drug, dubbed Denosumab, was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug was given in twice-yearly injections. A total of 412 postmenopausal women with low bone marrow density were randomly assigned to receive Denosumab, Merck's (NYSE:MRK - News) Fosamax...

Anyone concerned about their bones is likely to make sure they have plenty of vitamin D, either by getting enough sunshine, eating fish, or taking supplements. Yet scientists know surprisingly little about how the compound works. A new study has finally shed some light on this process, showing how the vitamin takes part in a delicate balancing act between cells that tear down our bones and cells that rebuild them. Vitamin D is a familiar player in bone health. Without sufficient amounts of this hormone, our frames become frail with disorders such as osteoporosis or rickets. But vitamin D has...