Serotonin Prescription Medicines: Potential Osteoporosis Cure
While there are prescription medicines available that are effective for treating osteoporosis, the disease still looms large for many Americans -- with millions suffering from what's known as the "silent disease." While bisphosphonates, a family of prescription drugs that works to slow the rate of bone loss in patients, do help to improve the quality of life for many, what is most needed to fully cure the condition are prescription medicines that can effectively aid in bone-building. While the parathyroid hormone that is already on the market has worked to increase bone formation, it is used only on a short-term basis and its high cost hurts its viability as a public treatment option.
Prescription Medicines and Serotonin
It's recently been discovered that prescription medicines containing serotonin may be the best ingredient doctors can use to treat or cure osteoporosis. While serotonin has typically been associated with chemical imbalances of the brain (excess levels are believed to lead to depression and anxiety), 95% of the body's supply is actually produced in the gut, and it's now believed that this chemical can directly affect bone formation. If utilized in the form of prescription drugs, serotonin could potentially become the biggest breakthrough for osteoporosis treatment to date.
New Possibilities for Prescription Drugs
Dr. Gerard Karsenty, chairman of the department of genetics and development at the Columbia University, discovered that serotonin of the gut appeared to be directly correlated to bone formation exhibited by lab mice and rats. During tests, the bone formation of rats not exposed to serotonin would function normally; conversely, the bone growth cells would cease to function when injected with serotonin. Some now believe that, if harnessed in the form of a new family of prescription drugs, serotonin could potentially cure osteoporosis.
However, prescription drugs alone cannot conquer osteoporosis: Only when these new prescription medicines are combined with healthy diet and exercise will more Americans be able to beat the disease.
While it may be several years before this new class of prescription drugs are made available to consumers, the results of these tests yield fantastic implications for osteoporosis sufferers around the globe. Perhaps, before the end of this new decade, osteoporosis can be added to the list of human diseases conquered by modern science and prescription medicines.