Are you taking Fosamax, Actonel, or Boniva?

This New York Times article will be of interest if you're taking, or
contemplating taking, these anti-osteoporosis drugs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/he...c04&ei=5087%0A

Eva

Eva wrote:
> This New York Times article will be of interest if you're taking, or
> contemplating taking, these anti-osteoporosis drugs:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/he...c04&ei=5087%0A
>
> Eva

That certainly gives one something to think about. I wonder what
differs in the women who have had the fractures after taking them
for 5+ years. And microfractures? That doesn't have a good ring
to it!

I don't take any of them. According to the link in the article,
my risk factor for "major osteoporetic" is about 9% in the next
10 years (in the absence of a femur neck scan) , and hip fracture
is ~0.6%. (http://www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX ), so assuming there's some
validity to the screen, I don't think I'll begin anytime soon.

FurPaw

--
The plural of anecdote is not proof.

To reply, unleash the dog.

On Jul 15, 6:51*pm, "Eva" <EvaDStructio...@NOverizon.net> wrote:

> This New York Times article will be of interest if you're taking, or
> contemplating taking, these anti-osteoporosis drugs:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/he...&ex=1216267200....
>
> Eva



Fascinating article.

A few years ago, my doctor prescribed Fosamax for me. I took it for a
few weeks, but stopped when it upset my stomach.

After reading the article, I'm glad I did.

So, for the past few years, I've been taking an OTC calcium
supplements instead. I take Citracal Calcium Citrate as well as
Vitamin-D. I also started giving these to my husband (he's 67).
Lucky for him that we did. Yesterday, he fell while trying to push a
heavy shopping card loaded with books. The cart tipped and fell on
his legs as he landed on his back. Aside from a few bruises, he's
fine with NO broken bones. We both consider him extremely lucky and
credit the calcium supplements to his strong bones.

marcy

urine therapy ----- have you heard about it ?
erach

Eva <EvaDStructionNO@noverizon.net> wrote:
> This New York Times article will be of interest if you're taking, or
> contemplating taking, these anti-osteoporosis drugs:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/he...c04&ei=5087%0A

The problem of pseudo end points in research studies. People whose
bones get too fragile have light low mass bones. So they found drugs
which add bone mass. But naturally added bone mass goes in exactly
those places which have been strained and possibly microfractured. So
the bone is added in exactly the right places to repair damage and
strengthen.

So how do we knows these drugs cause the extra bone to be deposited in
the right places to strengthen the bone and repair microdamage?

We don't. To do that would be more difficult and more expensive. So
correlations are substituted for causal relationships and they hope
it'll all balance out on average in the end anyway.

If doctors had better scientific educations they wouldn't be taken in
by this kind of profitable sleight-of-hand.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]