Osteoporosis

Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine by Mai Tran

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Allopathic treatments

There are a number of good treatments for primary osteoporosis, most of them medications. For people with secondary osteoporosis, treatment may focus on curing the underlying disease.

Drugs

For most women who've gone through menopause, the best treatment for osteoporosis is hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also called estrogen replacement therapy.

In addition to alleviating hot flashes, synthetic estrogens protect women against heart disease and they help to relieve and prevent osteoporosis. HRT increases a woman's supply of estrogen, which helps build new bone while preventing further bone loss.

Some women, however, do not want to take hormones because they have been linked to an increased risk of breast or uterine cancer . Other studies suggest that the risk is due to increasing age. Whether or not a woman takes hormones is a decision she should make carefully with her doctor. Most women take estrogen along with a synthetic form of progesterone, another female hormone. The combination helps protect against cancer of the uterus.

For people who can't or decide not to take estrogen, two other medications can be good choices. These are alendronate and calcitonin. Alendronate and calcitonin both stop bone loss, help build bone, and decrease fracture risk by as much as 50%. Alendronate (sold under the name Fosamax) is the first nonhormonal medication for osteoporosis ever approved by the FDA. It attaches itself to bone that's been targeted by bone-eating osteoclasts. It protects the bone from these cells. Osteoclasts help your body break down old bone tissue.

Calcitonin is a hormone that's been used as an injection for many years. A new version is on the market as a nasal spray. It too slows down bone-eating osteoclasts. Side effects of these drugs are minimal, but calcitonin builds bone by only 1.5% a year. Fosamax has proven safe in very large multi-year studies, but not much is known about the effects of its long-term use. Several medications under study include other biphosphonates that slow bone breakdown (like alendronate), sodium fluoride, vitamin D metabolites, and selective estrogen receptor modulators.

Surgery

Unfortunately, much of the treatment for osteoporosis is for fractures that result from advanced stages of the disease. For complicated fractures, such as broken hips, hospitalization and a surgical procedure are required. In hip replacement surgery, the broken hip is removed and replaced with a new hip made of plastic, or metal and plastic. Despite often successful surgeries, a large percentage of those who survive are unable to return to their previous level of activity, and many end up moving from self-care to a supervised living situation or nursing home. That's why prevention, getting early treatment, and taking steps to reduce bone loss are vital.