SAN JOSE, Calif. - Forgot milk? Better get to know Forteo and Fosamax.
In a study with potentially life-altering implications for millions of Americans with osteoporosis, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have found that new bone can be formed - and then maintained - by taking a hormone for one year and a popular prescription drug for the next.
The findings, in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, raise hopes that stronger bones might translate into fewer broken hips and so-called dowager's humps, boosting the quality of life for many seniors and saving the country billions of dollars in medical costs annually.
"The goal of considerably reversing osteoporosis is realistic," said Dr. Eric Orwoll, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. He was not involved in the study.
Scientists said the new study does not track whether the drug combination actually results in fewer bone fractures. Instead, it measured bone density in patients taking the medications in combination or alone.
But the results were positive enough that the researchers said physicians should discuss the therapies with their patients.
Researchers studied 238 women in four cities. Those who took an experimental hormone similar to the FDA-approved Forteo, which builds bone, and followed it with a year of Fosamax, which prevents bone-density loss, saw the bone density in their spines increase an average of 12 percent.
But the researchers said they were stunned by another finding: "If you use this bone-building agent which is very expensive for one year and you follow it by nothing, you seem to lose almost all the gains," said Dennis M. Black, lead author of the study and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.
The findings are important because patients are not supposed to take Forteo, which can cost more than $6,000 a year, for more than two years because of concerns that long-term use could cause cancer. Doctors have been grappling with how to treat osteoporosis in patients once they stop taking the product, also known as a parathyroid hormone.
Taking Fosamax after a course of parathyroid hormone "is clearly an effective sequence," said Dr. Felicia Cosman of the National Osteoporosis Foundation.
Osteoporosis affects 10-million Americans, experts say. An additional 18-million - 80 percent of whom are women - have low bone mass, putting them at risk for developing the disease.
New strategy shows promise in treating HIV
LONDON - A new treatment strategy has shown promise in helping to transform HIV into a curable infection.
Preliminary research published this week in the Lancet medical journal outlines how scientists used an anticonvulsant drug to awaken dormant HIV hiding in the body, where it is temporarily invisible but still dangerous.
HIV infection is incurable because current drugs only work when the virus is multiplying, which occurs only when it is in an active cell. However, HIV sometimes infects dormant cells, then becomes dormant itself.
While the virus poses no threat in its resting state, the sleeping cells sporadically wake up, reactivating the virus and causing it to multiply. Patients must continue to take medications for the rest of their lives so they can fight the virus when it comes out of the reawakened cells.
Figuring out how to clear this reservoir of latent infection is a key area of AIDS research.
The latest drug, valproic acid, shows promise, said Dr. Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology at the University of California at San Francisco.
"It's a first baby step, showing that maybe the use of (this type of drug) - far more likely in combination with one or two other agents - might be a viable approach for tackling this latency problem," said Greene, who was not involved with the research but is conducting similar studies.
The study, led by Dr. David Margolis at the University of North Carolina, tested the ability of valproic acid to reduce the number of infected dormant cells.
Four patients on standard therapy were given the pills to take twice daily for three months. The size of this pool of infected dormant cells decreased by 75 percent in three out of the four patients, the study found.
