For those of you who have not heard of Fosamax, it is a drug that was praised to help increase bone density, but has proven (like all drugs) to have long term side effects outweighing the possible benefits.
When your bones are building up they have construction workers called osteoblasts, they are reponsible for putting down bone, kind of like laying pavement on a road. When your bones are breaking down they call in the demolition crew called osteocytes, like the guys who clear the way for new roads. In a healthy person these guys work in conjunction to break out old brittle bone and lay down new stronger bone, like road repair. If your body is getting the proper stimulation, exercise and diet, then your bone structure does this automatically. When you are unable to move enough, or eat properly your body may take some of the minerals out of your bone to use when you are low, ca, mg, and others for example. This leads to brittle bone, osteopenia, osteoporosis.
One of the medical answerd to this is to give you fosamax. This intially sounded good, because it lead to more construction (osteoblast activity), less demolition (osteocyte activity) and thicker bone. Success? Well not exactly, because it lead to bone being built and no old bone being taken away. Kind of like laying a new road over an existing used road. This leads to brittle old bone that is thicker, but more prone to fracture. When you take a drug it effects your entire system, this leads to increased incidence of fracture throughout the body, and increased pain and suffering for those seeking help. Add to this that Fosamaxtm has been linked to a new form of jaw bone death, [“Over a three-year period, the jaws of dozens of patients who had undergone oral surgery at his hospital had failed to heal properly. Part of the jawbone had died and become exposed. “We never saw this before in the jaw” except in patients who had received radiation therapy to that part of the face, says Ruggiero, chief of oral and maxillofacial surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. “It just never existed.” Further investigation revealed one common thread: All of the patients had been treated with at least one of a class of drugs called bisphosphonates(Fosamaxtm). ] – USA Today.
“Cost of treating osteoporsis in the US is 14 billiion/yr, approximately 38 million/day. 50-68% of women over 50 have low bone density. Loss of bone density is 100% preventable- it is a result of nutritional and fitness deficiency and nutritional toxicity (grains, dairy). Following ‘expert’ medical recommendations for physical activity and dietary choices virtually ensures osteoporosis!” Journal of the American Medical Asssociation.
So in short this drug can increase the thickness of your bone, but not the quality, actually increasing your risk of fracture and complications relsulting in fracture. This is just another example of why adding chemicals to address symptoms is never a good long term solution to any problem we face.
Reference:
- Journal of American Medical Assoc. 2001; 286: 2815-2822.
- USA Today, ‘Drug Linked to Death of Jaw Bone.’ Rita Rubin.
- www.injurylawassociates.com/Fosamax/History.html
