Bone-Strengthening Drugs May Be Overprescribed

(Page 2)

The study also found that the research played down the potentially harmful side effects of these drugs; in one case, a re-analysis of data on raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), made no mention of the increased risk for blood clots.

Just this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert on bisphosphonates, the class of osteoporosis drugs that include alendronate and risedronate, warning that the medications can cause severe bone pain.

Even the study authors themselves are open to question, Alonso-Coello said. "Many of the authors are industry people, employees of the drug companies, which casts some doubt on them," he said.

Drug companies now are marketing the drugs in Europe to women with osteopenia, he said. According to the report, two companies had to modify their promotional material after complaints from Alonso-Coello and fellow researcher Ray Moynihan, a conjoint lecturer in the Faculty of Health at the University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia.

The World Health Organization is taking steps to help women with osteopenia make decisions about drug treatment. "WHO is moving to calculate absolute risk," Alonso-Coello said. "I contacted them recently and was told they might report really soon, as early as next January. They are working with well-developed equations to calculate the risk of fracture, the same sort of risk factors as for cardiovascular disease."

More information

All aspects of osteoporosis are explored by the National Osteoporosis Foundation.