Progress to Preventing and Curing weak bones and muscle loss in the elderly

Frailty is a common geriatric syndrome that embodies an elevated risk of catastrophic declines in health and function among older adults.

Curing and preventing osteoporosis (severe bone loss and weakness) and sarcopenia (muscle loss and weakness) would dramatically improve the health and life of most people over the age of 60.

How common is osteoporosis [age related severe bone loss and weakness]

Worldwide, osteoporosis (weak bones) causes more than 8.9 million fractures annually, resulting in an osteoporotic fracture every 3 seconds. Osteoporosis is estimated to affect 200 million women worldwide – approximately one-tenth of women aged 60, one-fifth of women aged 70, two-fifths of women aged 80 and two-thirds of women aged 90. Osteoporosis affects an estimated 75 million people in Europe, USA and Japan. Worldwide, 1 in 3 women over 50 will experience osteoporotic fractures, as will 1 in 5 men.

There are diets and calcium supplements to reduce the amount of bone loss and weakening of bones. There are newer drugs in the pipeline to regrow bone and stop osteoporosis.

There are promising bone building drugs.

The experimental drug, romosozumab, frees the body’s ability to stimulate bone production by blocking biochemical signals that naturally inhibit bone formation. It is 1.5 times to 3 times better than current drugs at regrowing bone.

There is a drug called anti-sclerostin antibody. Now in its earliest clinical trials (the first long-term study in people), the drug, McClung says, “does not inhibit bone resorption, it activates bone formation, so it is a true bone-building drug.” In rats and monkeys it has not only restored the amount of bone but also its structure, architecture and strength, thus literally curing osteoporosis in a few months.

Meanwhile a team at Columbia University has discovered that the serotonin produced in the gut prevents bone formation, and that an “investigational” drug called LP533401, developed for irritable bowel syndrome, inhibits serotonin synthesis and thereby both prevented osteoporosis from developing and cured existing osteoporosis over a six-week trial in mice and rats.

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