Bisphosphonates May Act to Reduce Mortality through Vascular Mechanisms

Bisphosphonates are used as a treatment for osteoporosis. Like most pharmaceutical therapies for age-related disease, they have a set of unpleasant side-effects, but a couple of studies have found evidence for long-term bisphosphonate use to reduce mortality in older individuals. In one case the effect was quite large, a dramatic decrease in mortality versus the expected rates. I think there remains some skepticism about an effect of that size resulting from commonly used medications, versus it being an accident of the data or the study group or some other correlated but unrecorded difference, at least until further studies with larger patient groups take place. What might the mechanism be, however? Past work suggests that bisphosphonates have some beneficial effect on stem cell activity, which might be a viable explanation, given better evidence in patients. The paper here is focused instead on cardiovascular issues, such as (a) the calcification of blood vessels that contributes to hypertension, and (b) the development of atherosclerosis, in which fatty plaques form to narrow and weaken blood vessels, ultimately causing death when one of these weak points ruptures. These are prominent issues in aging, and given strong evidence for bisphosphonates to produce benefits on this front, it would be a plausible mechanism for reduced mortality. The open access review paper here walks through the current evidence for this hypothesis. In the past, osteoporosis and ath...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs