Summary

Drugs may, indeed, reduce the loss of bone mineral density, but drugs cannot rebuild bones, and the three strategies mentioned above most certainly can.

Original source:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=6992939

Details

• A drug used to restore the strength of brittle bones by reducing the process of bone resorption has been shown to benefit women 80 years of age or older.
• In this elderly population, risedronate, marketed under the brand-name Actonel, diminishes the risk of fractured vertebrae that comes with advanced osteoporosis, according to results of a study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
• Dr. Steven Boonen, of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and colleagues pooled data on women 80+ years old with osteoporosis who took part in three clinical trial of risedronate.
• In total, 704 women were assigned to take 5 milligrams per day of risedronate and 688 were given an inactive placebo pill for up to 3 years.
• All of the participants, who ranged in age from 80 to 100, received calcium supplementation.
• After 1 year, the occurrence rate of new vertebral fractures was 2.5 percent in the risedronate group and 10.9 percent in the placebo group.
• This, say the investigators, "represents a 44 percent lower risk in the risedronate group compared with the placebo group."
• The safety of risedronate was similar to that of placebo, and there was no significant difference between the groups in the risk of non-vertebral fractures.
• At 3 years, the proportion of these fractures in the risedronate group was 14 percent and in the placebo group, 16.2 percent.
• The findings, Boonen's team concludes, "provide the first evidence that, even in the very old, reducing bone resorption rate remains an effective treatment strategy for osteoporosis."
• SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, November 2004.

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