Remember this woman?
We love to shill, shill, shill!
Well they pay her to be a fake, so I guess we can’t get worked up about it. But before you take this woman’s advice and go out and make yourself toxic on bisphonate drugs for the “prevention” of osteoporosis like Fosamax (alendronate), Actonel (risedronate), and Boniva (ibandronate), read some of the comments from readers, the first Gwinn “Junior” Dunham, from back home in Washington State, and the second from Jennifer Schneider MD PhD, who actually wrote a case report based on her own bisphosphonate induced fracture! Here is the email from Junior whose wife was taking Fosamax and who developed the beginning stages of erosive esophagitis, a potentially fatal condition that is a side effect of bisphosphonates [I think when he says calcium he is referring to a bisphosphonate]…
Hey Doug
How kind of you to reply with an e-mail message.
I am SO GLAD your father told me about your book some months back. I bought it but it just sat around not being read. I guess at age 75 it is not always easy to sit down and concentrate by reading technical information.
I have always felt it is best NOT to take medicine unless it is really needed.
Joy had been taking the calcium pill once a week for a couple years. I had concerns about it right from the start as she was NOT to lie down but stay upright for at least 30 minutes. I kept thinking that it cannot be good for the stomach if it is bad for the throat.
Then she started taking TOO MANY tums and I thought something was going on in her system. Seemed like she began to have trouble swallowing this past month.
I told her it had to be related to the medication she was taking. That is when I got your book out and started doing some serious reading. The pieces of the puzzle really started coming together and what you wrote really made sense ! !
She had a scheduled doctor appointment Wednesday afternoon. We BOTH went in and I think things are on the right track now.
I plan to continue reading your book but will do it slowly, one chapter at a time.
I might tell you that I ordered two more of your books today at a book store in Silverdale. Plan to give them to two of our daughters.
_______________________________________________________
I grew up across the street from your father. My family had the corner house at MAIN ST. & BENSON ROAD. My father was a Border Patrolman
Jim was just over a year older than me.
I graduated from Western with a teaching degree. Did my first nine years at Clover Park District 1955 – 64. During 1963 – 64 I taught televised elementary school science on Ch. 56 My daily schedules were somewhat open as I did not have a class of children to look after. I had to be on hand to do the six televised lessons each week and prepare scripts for what the lessons would be.
One day I decided to go to the barber shop in Lakewood to get a hair cut during my lunch break. While waiting in a chair (as were several others ) a fella said, “are you Junior Dunham”? It was your father and was I ever surprised! We got in a brief visit.
That was the last time I saw him.
A year or so ago I was doing some searching on my computer and I located a phone number for him. I called him and I am sure he was also amazed. We send e-mail back and forth now.
It was on one of those e-mails that he told me about your book. I went right out and bought it and the rest is history.
And as if that is not enough, here is a case report on alendronate induced fracture written by Jennifer Schneider MD about herself. Yes she taking alendronate when her bone snapped. Here is her x ray and her (NOT ghost written!) case report.
A woman visiting New York City was riding a subway train one morning when the train jolted. She shifted all her weight to one leg, felt a bone snap, and fell to the floor of the train. A hip x-ray in a local emergency department revealed a comminuted spiral fracture involving the upper half of the right femur (see figure). The woman was transferred to an orthopedic hospital, where she was noted to be 5’9” tall, 155 pounds, and in a great deal of pain. She had no significant medical problems aside from osteoarthritis of the knees and thumbs. Her medications consisted of hormone replacement therapy and alendronate, 70 mg/week. She had been taking alendronate for approximately seven years.
- OUCH! That must have hurt!
In the most recent issue of the journal Geriatrics Jennifer has described several more cases. In addition she has this UNUSUAL DISCLOSURE that differs from those “other” kind we have been reading about so much lately.
Dr Schneider practices internal medicine and pain management in Tucson, Arizona. Disclosure: As she was the patient in a related 2006 Geriatrics case report, the author discloses that she has a personal interest in understanding the possible causative role of alendronate and atypical femoral fractures. She states that she has no financial interests in any pharmaceutical product used to treat osteoporosis.
Ha ha ha! That’s the best disclosure I have ever seen!
Anyhoo, I have written at length about the osteoporosis drugs and the rat maze of bone mineral density (BMD) and treatment. Bottom line is it doesn’t make any sense to take drugs to prevent osteoporosis. Remember that commercial where the graceful but aging woman is talking about how she got shorter? And that if you had the same problem you should ‘talk to your doctor’. Well I don’t recommend talking to your doctor for any reason unless you are really sick (and not just think that you are sick or might have undetected disease). Why? Well first of all most doctors are boring (yours truly included). Second of all, in spite of common beliefs to the contrary amongst both doctors and their patients, there is no evidence that going to the doctor if you aren’t sick is good for your health. In fact, both the American Medical Association (ever heard of them?) and the Canadian Medical Association recommend against the annual physical checkup for healthy people.
As for osteoporosis and bone mineral density (BMD) testing, the most disabling of fractures occurs in the elderly, in the hipbone, specifically the femoral neck, which is associated with considerable loss of mobility. The studies haven’t shown that for women without a history of osteoporotic fracture that these drugs can prevent hip fractures. According to the guidelines, half of postmenopausal women should be taking medication for osteoporosis. However, recommendations for so many women to take bone medications don’t make any sense. 
study collectively performed in thousands of women with osteoporosis based on BMD, did not show a reduction in hip fractures, the kind of fracture most clearly associated with lasting disability.
In terms of fractures in other parts of the body, referred to collectively as nonvertebral fractures (in places like the clavicle or the wrist) the findings are more mixed, with differing findings depending on whether there is a prior history of fractures and other factors.
This study did not show impressive results for women with osteoporosis but no history of fracture
The Hip Intervention Program (HIP) Study assessed the effects of three years of risedronate or placebo in 9331 women over age 70 with dramatic losses of bone mineral density (t score less than -4), with -2.5 being regular osteoporosis) or t score less than -3 with a risk factor for hip fracture, like propensity to fall. Overall 2.8% of women on risedronate suffered hip fracture versus 3.9% on placebo, a difference of 1.1% that although statistically significant was not very impressive. In the only study of men to date, bishphosphonates did not prevent painful vertebral fractures or nonvertebral fractures, including fractures of the hip.
And what about treatment beyond three years? The implication of the educational campaigns about osteoporosis is that this is a disease for which you need to be treated for the rest of your life. But is there evidence of added benefit of long-term treatment, or perhaps harm? The studies I reviewed above showed that after five years there is no benefit. In other words after five years they seem to stop working. How could this be?
Again, bisphosphonates act by inhibiting osteoclasts, the cells that act to break down bone. So although they increase BMD for a few years, in the long run they decrease bone turnover. Animals treated with bisphosphonates have a decrease in bone turnover. Women on alendronate were found to take up to two years to heal after a fracture, and had markedly suppressed bone formation on biopsy. In the long run bisphosphonates may decrease the ability of bones to resist fracture, making bones more brittle. They also are not metabolized, meaning that they bisphosphonates you are taking now will be in your bones for life, resulting in a long term reduction in bone turnover.
This decrease in bone turnover underlies the scariest potential side effect of bisphosphonates: osteonecrosis. Osteonecrosis is a degeneration of the bone in the jaw that may require surgery. Osteonecrosis was seen in “Fossy Jaw” or “Phossy Jaw”, which developed in workers in 19th Century match making factories exposed to phosphorus. The phosphorus would get into the bone of the jaw, much like the bisphosphonates do, and stop bone turnover, leading to death of the bone tissue. The outcome was so painful and disfiguring that it sometimes led people to kill themselves.
Although most of the cases of osteonecrosis of the jaw have been reported in patients with bone metastases or myeloma treated with intravenous bisphosphonates, there are now emerging cases in patients who took the medication only for the “prevention of osteoporosis.”
This shows there are those out there for whom there is little potential benefit and unfortunately much to lose in taking bisphosphonates. A total of 15 cases of osteonecrosis have been reported with oral alendronate, one with oral risedronate and one with ibandronate, taken for the treatment of osteoporosis or Paget’s Disease (a disease of that makes bones weak and fragile).
Maybe the “Fossy Jaw” should refer to Fosamax, and not Phosphorus!
Marilyn Mann wrote on this topic on Gooznews here:
http://www.gooznews.com/archives/001116.html
Article on Sen Charles Grassley in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20090208_Charles_Grassley_and_the_FDA.html
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