A new study shows that a drug that helps women with osteoporosis also helps men.
This disease makes bones thinner and weaker.
It increases chances that the bones will break.It also leads to loss of height.
Ten-million people in the United States have osteoporosis.Two million of them are men.
Women with osteoporosis have been treated successfully with drugs.
But there currently is no treatment approved for general use in men.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported the research.
The study involved two-hundred-forty-one men with osteoporosis.
They were aged thirty-one to eighty-seven.One-hundred-forty-six men received the drug Fosamax each day.
Ninety-five of the men received a pill containing no medicine.
Everyone in the study took Vitamin D and calcium.
The men who took Fosamax had a seven-percent increase in the thickness of the bones of their backs.
They had a three-percent increase in the thickness of their hipbones.
They had a two-percent increase in bone density in their bodies in general.
Men who took the false drug had a two-percent increase in thickness of the bones of their backs.
However,they had no increase in their hipbones.Nor was there general improvement in their whole bodies.
During the two years of the study,one-percent of the group taking Fosamax broke their back bones.
But seven percent of those who took the false drug suffered broken bones in their back.
The lead study researcher was Eric Orwoll.
He works for the Oregon Health Sciences University in the northwestern city of Portland,Oregon.
Doctor Orwoll says scientists have thought of osteoporosis as a women's disease.
Many older women suffer bone loss after their menstrual periods stop.
He says scientists have not considered that men also suffer from osteoporosis.
Generally,fewer men than women get the disease because men have larger and stronger bones.
However,men are more likely to get osteoporosis if they smoke cigarettes or drink a great deal of alcohol.
They also are more likely to get the disease if they do not exercise,or if they take drugs known as steroids.
The company that makes Fosamax now is seeking government approval of the drug for men with osteoporosis.