Premature Osteoporosis Causes Early Onset "Dowager's Hump"
Research into side effects of common drugs provides insights into resistant osteoporosis.
Bone health conversations are typically limited to advice on supplementation with minerals or vitamins or–even worse–prescription bone density drugs. New discoveries highlight what may be another valuable tool to combat osteoporosis naturally: Collagen. Doctors at Orthopedic Hospital in Shropshire, United Kingdom, discovered that a common mood-stabilizing drug called valproic acid also blocks bone’s ability to make collagen by sixty percent, by blocking the action of bone-building cells called fibroblasts.
People who use this drug for more than six months have long been known to develop premature osteoporosis, and have been placed on calcium supplementation and bone density drugs with unimpressive results. This mirrors my own experience. I have met many women in their forties and up who rapidly lose bone mass in spite of high calcium intake, plenty of vitamins D, and K, and exercise. The missing link should really have been obvious, after all, more than 90 percent of bone mass comes from protein.
In my experience in Hawaii treating Filipino women who make gelatinous soups flavored with bone (oxtail soup, fish head soup), or bone broth, on a regular basis, I found very few who had significant loss of bone mass or loss of spinal height before reaching their 80s. Of course, this is just an observation. But because glycosaminoglycans in these gelatinous broths are known to trigger the production of collagen by fibroblasts, I am compelled to believe that the fact that so few Caucasian American women cook with bone broth compared to Filipinos has something to do with their weaker bones.
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A mood drug making it so that your bones don’t grown right? Makes you wonder what other less detectable side effects a lot of these drugs might have. Kinda scary.
Hi Cate
One slightly nagging question mark I have regarding bone broths is the risk of CJD. Here in Europe (rare in Ireland but there has been cases) it remains a risk and some studies suggest that meat on the bone increases the risk in the even of eating contaminated meat. It is suggested that just as marrow is nutrient dense it may also be the best place for diseases to propagate. Just wondering if it is an issue you have come across in the US? Neil
To my knowledge, CJD is only transmitted when an uninfected animal, human or cow, eats intact neural tissue from an infected animal. This is in contrast to scrapie prions, which can be picked up from the dirt.
By this reasoning, CJD is therefore very very unlikely and actually theoretically impossible from a 100% pasture-fed cow.
Hi Dr. Cate,
I was wondering if there was any benefit from eating chicken necks? I’ve heard of people actually eating the neck bones because they are soft. Or should I just use them for the bone broth?
Thank you!
Hmmm. I can’t imaging that would be very enjoyable but maybe you can find a recipe and get back to us! Broth will get you lots of benefits, not all the calcium of actual bone, but you will get some calcium, you will get the glycosaminoglycans, and you can get the rest of your calcium from other sources.