Posts Tagged ‘Osteoporosis medication’
What is Clinical Osteoporosis?
Increased Fracture Risk is Clinical Osteoporosis. Clinical Osteoporosis is a diagnosis. It is a chronic medical condition that you have for the rest of your life, like high blood pressure. It can never be fully “cured”, but it can be fully controlled. That is what we do. We help you to Take Control.
Confusion arises because”osteoporosis” is also a Bone Mineral Density (BMD) test result, as measured by DXA. Persons with “osteoporosis” for a test result are at high risk, but so are many with “osteopenia”. In fact 6 times as many people with “osteopenia” have Fragility Fractures as people with “osteoporosis” test scores. Fractures and fracture risk matter more than test scores.
No Human Osteosarcoma Linked to Forteo
A reader has asked about bone cancer and Forteo.
Osteosarcoma is a rare bone cancer. Lilly has endowed a 15-year independent study (suggested by the FDA) of all Osteosarcoma patients in Cancer Registries, looking for individuals who have taken Forteo. The halfway point results from June 2004 through Sept 2011 were published in JBMR in Dec 2012. Of the 1448 persons who had Osteosarcoma during that time period, not one had taken Forteo.
The “black box” warning on the Forteo (Teriparatide) label refers to studies of rats, not humans. These rats very commonly get osteosarcoma without any medication. The rats were given doses 3 to 20 times the human dose for the equivalent of 70 human years. Rats’ bones never stop growing. Growing bones are particularly vulnerable to osteosarcoma. Humans are different from rats.
Gummies For Grammies
Recently I had a patient whose spine had lost 10% of its Bone Mineral Density (BMD) since her last DXA. She has lost height in the last year. She has 3 new Vertebral Compression Fractures on her VFA. At 61 she is literally falling apart. She has severe osteoporosis. Her medical history form tells why.
She does not consume milk, or yogurt, or cheese, or calcium fortified orange juice or any veggies with Calcium in them. She will not take Calcium pills or even Calcium -rich Adora Premium Chocolates. She simply cannot have good bone health without some source of Calcium. She had me stymied……..until she admitted she liked Gummies!