Osteoporosis Research

The occurrence of an unusual type of fracture of the femur, or the thigh bone, is very low in patients with osteoporosis, including those treated with the drug family known as bisphosphonates, according to a new study led by a team of UCSF epidemiologists.

Leading study author, Dr Jackie Center says: "While women are initially twice as likely as men to have a fracture, once the first break occurs, the risk of a second substantially increases and the protective effects of being male disappear altogether."

Taking time off from certain osteoporosis drugs may be beneficial to bone health, according to a study conducted at Loyola University Health System. Researchers found that bone density remained stable for three years in patients who took a drug holiday from bisphosphonates, a popular class of osteoporosis drugs that can cause fractures in the thigh bones and tissue decay in the jaw bone.

People undergoing bisphosphonate therapy to prevent or treat osteoporosis (a thinning of the bones) may be unfamiliar with the drug and possible adverse side effects on oral health, according to a study in the May issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy have identified the genetic variations that are believed to cause osteoporosis. The study, published in Nature Genetics and involving leading researchers from Sweden and the world, shows among other interesting facts that women with a higher proportion of genetic variations associated with osteoporosis have a more than 50 percent increased fracture risk.

While moderate amounts of calcium (around 700 mg a day) are vital for maintaining healthy bones, there is no need to start increasing calcium intake in order to reduce the risk of fractures or osteoporosis in later life, finds a paper published on the British Medical Journal website on May 24.

Preliminary findings from an upcoming new report by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) show alarming projections and reveal the poor state of post-fracture care in the Russian Federation and many other countries in the region. The findings were announced at a press conference in St. Petersburg at the IOF Summit of Eastern European and Central Asian Osteoporosis Patient Societies.

Thirty-two previously unidentified genetic regions associated with osteoporosis and fracture have been identified by a large, worldwide consortium of researchers, including Stanford Prevention Research Center chief John Ioannidis, MD, DSc. Variations in the DNA sequences in these regions confer either risk or protection from the bone-weakening disease. Many, but not all, of the regions encode proteins involved in pathways known to involve bone health.

Home-based exercises followed by voluntary home training seem to be associated with long-term effects on balance and gait (manner of walking), and may help protect high-risk, elderly women from hip fractures, according to a report in the September 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Women who take some types of bone-building drugs used to prevent and treat osteoporosis may be at lower risk of breast cancer, according to a study by U.S. researchers published in the British Journal of Cancer.

An elderly person's risk of falling is too often overlooked when trying to prevent them from getting serious fractures, for instance of the hip or wrist, according to an article published in the British Medical Journal.

Birth control pills may reduce a woman's bone density, according to a study published online July 13 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism by Group Health Research Institute (GHRI) scientists. Impacts on bone were small, depended on the woman's age and the pill's hormone dose, and did not appear until about two years of use. The study size and design allowed the researchers to focus on 14- to 18-year-old teenagers, and to look at how bone density might change when a woman stops using the pill.