How to grow bone to treat osteoporosis and mend fractures.
The growing number of patients with osteoporosis in our aging population need "anabolic" drugs to stimulate bone growth, improve bone microarchitecture, and accelerate fracture healing. Potent anabolic agents such as parathyroid hormone (PTH) and some of its adenylyl cyclase-stimulating fragments are either on their way, or have just now reached the clinic. This article discusses how PTHs might stimulate bone growth. The controversial bone anabolic activities of the widely used cholesterol-lowering lipophilic statins and how they might stimulate bone growth are also probed. Also, evidence is presented for leptin, a controller of body fat stores and the ovarian cycle. It has the remarkable property of being an anabolic and antianabolic that uses a hypothalamic factor to restrain osteoblast activity but by itself stimulates osteoblasts and inhibits osteoclasts.
Whitfield
James F
JF
Institute for Biological Sciences, National Research Council of Canada, Montreal Road Campus, Building M-54, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R6, Canada. pthosteo@rogers.com
D000818:Animals; D001846:Bone Development / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D016723:Bone Remodeling / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005598:Fractures, Spontaneous / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D020738:Leptin / Q000378:metabolism; D010012:Osteogenesis / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D010024:Osteoporosis / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D010281:Parathyroid Hormone / Q000627:therapeutic use; D011379:Prognosis; D018570:Risk Assessment
D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors; D020738:Leptin; D010281:Parathyroid Hormone