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Weightvest For Osteoporosis

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My mother

Weightvest my mother

Mum struggled to keep her head up because she felt so bad to be so bent over. She walked more miles in her life than anyone I have known and was as strong as a horse but her bones let her down.

Forteo, Not a Great Solution

On Dr Susan Brown’s bone blog recently there was a great article about Forteo. I have had women ask me about it before but I wasn’t believing the good reports from it since they are so short term and seemed to come from the company that sells it. I also didn’t think too many of my weight vest customers would be interested in a drug that has to be injected daily and costs over $500- a month.

Anyway Dr Brown’s article is really well done and here is her bottom line:

“As near as I can calculate, since its development, studies on this drug have included only 1943 patients. According to the manufacturer, a study of one year is considered “long term,” while the maximum length of any study was only two years. Thus, not only is Forteo relatively new, but it is also experimental and, I would say, inadequately tested. In addition, it is very expensive — the drug costs upwards of $600–$700 per month! Further, it is inconvenient to use as it must be given as a daily self-administered injection. Most importantly, since this drug has shown to cause cancer in rat safety studies, its use by humans is limited to two years or less. While there may be significant bone density gains while using Forteo, the research is clear that these gains are lost once the drug is stopped. To maintain bone density gains, antiresorptive drugs such as Fosamax must be used after stopping Forteo.”

You can find the whole blog entry here.

Now here is a coincidence. This morning an old customer called me. She had bought a vest some years ago, loves it and still uses it faithfully, but she has many health issues that are causing her so lose bone. She is very tiny, has digestive problems that prevent absorbtion of her food and has had many broken bones. So she is obviously not your average woman. She was put on Forteo and hopes to build some bone in the two years her doctor told her she could stay on it. Her doctor told her that she has had thousands of patients who were on Forteo for two years and still kept the bone gain ten years later. This is obviously not a study of any kind but it is interesting input. Whenever someone says thousands I’m inclined to think they are given to exaggeration. How many severely osteoporitic patients can one doctor have? And twelve years ago when the drug was new? But she is in Miami where lots of older folks live so maybe it’s true.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that there are many opinions, many stories, often many conflicting studies with different outcomes, and we are all different. This woman needs to do everything she can to build bone. She actually called me to ask how I was doing with the bio-identical hormones so I will update that in the next post.

Many of the women reading this will be younger and will not have to take drugs that may later turn out to be dangerous, if they take care of their bones with diet and exercise early enough.

So get with the program, women, start pumping out those hindu squats as if your wellbeing depended on it. How hard is it to do 5 every time you go to the bathroom? They will help with elimination at the same time as build muscle and balance.

Enjoy some sunshine today,
Pam

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