[lapyignipinge]

Thanks to Dr. Young for this post. I agree with him completely. I quit taking Fosamax several years ago and also took my elderly mother off of it.



Please post this on your website under my name, Henry E. Young, PhD.



I would be careful of Fosamax and the other osteoporosis medication containing bisphosphonates. The bones in your body are very dynamic and repair themselves at a relatively rapid rate compared to other tissues and organs in your body. The main cell in bone that causes this dynamic change is called an osteoclast. It's basic function is to get rid of worn-out (micro-fractured) bone and then allow an osteoblast to replace the reamed-out worn-out microfractured bone with new strong healthy bone. One of the problems that the medical community is discovering now is that the osteoclasts cannot breakdown bisphosphonates. Therefore, the osteoclasts do not know what to do with it, other than just leaving it in place. That might sound like a good thing, i.e., makes your bones stronger - and in the short term that is correct. However, in the long term microfractures can occur in bone that contains the bisphosphonates. But, since the osteoclasts cannot repair biphosponate-containing bone, that particular bone becomes very brittle - and you are actually worse off than you were originally.



Best advice is to start a weight-training program to put tension on your muscles, which in turn puts tension on your bones to build up bone mass. You probably also need to supplement your dient with calcium and vitamin-D to help strengthen your bone.



You don?t need to buy an expensive gym membership to do this, but rather it that can be done at home by "curling" 1 lb, 2 lb, 3 lb containers of food. Using these ?weights?, you can also extend your arms forward (flexion), extend your arms sideways (abduction), extend your arms backwards (extension), bring your arms together in front of you (adduction). These same exercises can be performed with your lower extremities as well.. However, you would probably need to buy 1 lb weights to strap to your ankles to start with. Then move up to higher weights as your stamina allows.



Henry



Know your model system and Tissue never lies - P.M. Johnston
Knowledge without an imagination is worthless - Albert Einstein
Adult stem cells do it better - H.E. Young