Necessity of biophosphonates for a compression fracture in a 68 y.o. male without osteoporosis.
I am a generally healthy and active 68-year-old male. I exercise regularly (isometrics, 2-plus miles of walking per day, sailing in the summer), eat a low fat, low salt, low sugar diet, and take natural supplements for moderately high cholesterol. I also take a daily beta-blocker for one episode of lone atrial fibrillation experienced a decade ago.
In February, I developed a spontaneous, non-traumatic spinal compression fracture in my upper-middle back, from which I am about 80 percent recovered. After all the usual tests, the presumed cause was traced to mild osteopenia (average T scores: -1.2 in spine; -0.7 in hip). My family physician has put me on calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin D3 and has recommended I take a biophosphonate. However, he has left the final decision to me, since I don't fit any of the usual categories (for instance, no osteoporosis). I am a medical "outlier," he says.
My question is whether I need a biophosphonate. I am familiar with the controversy surrounding them, and I dislike drug therapies when I can do things in a natural way. I managed to successfully lower my cholesterol without taking statin drugs, and I wonder if my fracture an be similarly addressed.
Thank you.
Hi Wayne, welcome to the community. Sorry to hear about your spontaneous fracture! Is your Dr. planning any medical treatment for that or will you just let it heal by itself? Congrats on lowering your cholesterol without statins
Your exercise, diet and supplement routine sounds great.
Since you've had luck with natural treatments and are leary of the osteoporosis meds, have you looked into Fosteum? This is a treatment for osteopenia and osteoporosis that contains D3, zinc, and genistein (form of soybean), that can be used by both men and women. Here's an article on Fosteum that you can read with links to Primus' web site for more information on it; also see the clinical trial mentioned within the article. This medication has to be prescribed by a Dr., and has FDA approval, and it's not a bisphosphonate.
There's also a supplement that you can get OTC called Strontium Citrate, but one of our other members knows more about this, so see Phyllis' reply on it below.
Good luck with this and if you need any more information please re-post using the Reply button, or post a new question.
- Thank you for your input
- Ranked Helpful (2)
- Report Abuse
Pam Flores
Friday, May 29, 2009 at 07:36 PM












Hi Wayne: I just checked the link to the clinical trial on the Fosteum article, and the page has been moved. Here's the NEW link for it which is available at PubMed. Title is: Effects of genistein aglycone in osteoporotic, ovariectomized rats: a comparison with alendronate, raloxifene and oestradiol (British Journal of Pharmacology, August 2008).
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2515927
In this study Fosteum out-performed Fosamax, HRT, and Evista, in both bone mineral density and bone mineral content.
I hope this helps. All the other links, in the article, are still available.
Good Luck...