Bone Drugs Stealing Bone Instead?
Larrian on March 4th, 2008 | Filed under Women's Health
If you’re a postmenopausal women taking those highly advertised “bone building” pills, you may be giving yourself a punch in the jaw. Bisphosphonates or BF drugs ( alendronate (Fosomax), etidronate (Didrocal) and risedronate (Actonel) can steal the blood supply from your bones, especially the jaw bone, causing osteonecrosis, joint pain and muscle aches. Add this to the already widely known GI side effects and you have a drug that may be robbing Peter to pay the dentist.
So what’s a gal to do? Well, first of all, the medical tide of recommendations is turning back to natural 17 beta estradiol in low dose ( a blood level between 70-120, the same as the follicular or days 1-7 of your menstrual cycle..when you had one!) on a daily basis. Nothing has proved more effective at preventing and keeping bones strong than 17 beta estradiol. Now another study has shown that eating dried prunes and apricots every day ( about 4 total ) can do about as much good as those expensive BF drugs. Not to mention all the other nice side effects, such as smoothing out your GI tract.
Prunes and apricots, when dried, are a rich source of phenolic and flavonoid compounds, soluble fiber, boron and pectin. This helps to raise insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BSAP) activity, both of which are associated with greater rates of bone formation. So stock up on a few prunes and apricots a day, along with a nice source of calcium, like full fat yogurt, and your skeleton will thank you.
Bisphosphonates and osteonecrosis of the jaw: cause and effect or a post hoc fallacy?
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March 14th, 2008 at 10:24 am
[…] women who didn’t take estrogen therapy. Hmmm…I wonder how that would compare to a few prunes and apricots a day? In an interview with the LA Times, Von Mühlen was quoted: “People believe that they […]
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