Newswise — The New York Times is reporting on people’s reluctance to take osteoporosis medications. If you are following this story, Dr. Michael Yeh, UCLA associate professor of surgery and medicine, can provide expert commentary. Yeh published his own findings about osteoporosis meds in the April 5 Annals of Internal Medicine. For more than two decades, bisphosphonates, better known via television ads as Fosamax and Boniva, have been the go-to prescription drug for people with osteoporosis.
But Yeh found that for hyperparathyroidism, one leading cause of the bone-loss disease, taking bisphosphonates could make things worse and increase the risk of fracture. Worse, in fact, then doing nothing at all.
His research suggested that simple surgery may be better. Hyperparathyroidism is caused when four glands in the neck called parathyroid glands, which regulate calcium in the body, go awry. Yeh showed that patients who have minimally invasive surgery to remove the overactive glands have fewer subsequent bone fractures than those patients taking the bisphosphonates.
The researchers analyzed data from more than 6,000 people who had been diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism between 1995 and 2010. Yeh described the findings as “startling,” and said it was surprising that people taking medications had a higher risk for fractures, even though X-rays showed that they had similar gains in bone density to the people who had undergone surgery.
“We were unable to demonstrate any benefit associated with this class of drugs, which have been around and routinely prescribed for more than 20 years,” he said. “These findings should make bisphosphonates less attractive as an alternative to parathyroid surgery in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism.”
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