The big news today is that Reclast, the once-a-year bisphosphonate drug injection, is being recommended for osteoporosis. It has previously been approved for Paget’s disease, a more serious bone disease. Now Novartis is seeking approval for its use with osteoporosis.
According to Reuters, "However, serious atrial fibrillation — an abnormal heart rhythm that can increase the risk of stroke – was nearly three times more common among the 3,889 volunteers getting the Novartis drug than among the 3,876 given placebo injections. One in 77 Reclast patients developed the problem."
Other side effects of the drug include fever, muscle pain, flu-like symptoms, headache, and bone pain, the majority of which occurred within the first three days following Reclast administration.
The successful studies over the last three years were paid for by Novartis. The drug company hopes that women over 50 will switch en masse from Fosamax, Boniva and Actonel to once-a-year Reclast. The injection takes fifteen minutes and there is no information as yet about the cost. Since the average cost of the once-a-week drug is fifty dollars, then it wouldn’t surprise me if the cost of the injection is not equivalently high. After all, this stuff is still a bisphosphonate drug made from cleaning fluid. Excuse the sarcasm. If the drug companies put this drug out for fifty bucks a year I will be amazed.
So, when I try to do research about the drug and how it works, the only results I get are put out by the drug company. This is very new, only tested for three years. I would say to use extreme caution here. Don’t be the first in line at the doctor’s office waiting for approval. What in nature can you take once and have it still be affecting your body a year later? And why are we so brainwashed that we think it’s a good thing to take one pill a year to fix our bones? It’s nuts! This is a very toxic poison that selectively kills certain cells within our bones.
The pill forms of bisphosphonates have a half life of over twenty years so they are still affecting women for years after they realize the dangers and give them up. My best advice would be to wait until you are eighty and really at risk for bone fractures and then make an informed decision. Maybe by then, for most of my readers, the drug will be better tested than it is now.
Let’s stick to the weight vests and natural supplements and not get suckered into easy solutions that may turn out to be way worse than the actual disease.
May your heart, mind and bones be strong,
Pam
Bisphosphonate drugs for Osteoporosis, like Fosamax and Actonel, are taken up by osteoclasts with resulting loss of osteoclast activity and inhibition of bone resorption, and bone remodeling.
Although DEXA scanning confirms increased bone density and studies such as the FIT suggest reduced fracture rate, Susan Ott, MD raises questions about the long term safety of bisphosphonates. Although the bisphosphonates appear to have short term benefits, she speculates that after 5 years of use, there is severe suppression of bone formation with negative effects such as microdamage and brittleness.
Spontaneous Fractures of the Mid-Femur
Jennifer P. Schneider, MD, PhD reports a 59-year old previously healthy woman on long-term alendronate. While on a subway train in New York City one morning, the train jolted, and the woman shifted all her weight to one leg, felt a bone snap, and fell to the floor, suffering a spontaneous mid -femur fracture. This is not an isolated report.
Avacular Necrosis of the Jaw
Dimitrakopoulos reports on 11 patients presenting with necrosis of the jaw, claiming this to be a new complication of bisphosphonate therapy administration, i.e. osteonecrosis of jaws. He advised clinicians to reconsider the merits of the rampant use of bisphosphonates. Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a common finding in pycnodysostosis. The bisphosphonates recreate the same clinical profile of spontaneous mid femur fractures, failure of bone healing and jaw necrosis which tormented the famous French artist, Toulouse Lautrec.
For links to references and more information see my newsletter:
http://jeffreydach.com/2007/05/14/fosamax-actonel-osteoporosis-and-toulouse-lautrec-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
Fosamax, Actonel, Osteoporosis and Toulouse Lautrec’s Disease
http://www.drdach.com/wst_page6.html
Jeffrey Dach MD