MAPI News

 

The Maharishi Ayurveda approach to Osteoporosis

By Nancy Lonsdorf, MD

New evidence has revealed that certain osteoporosis drugs may actually weaken bones over time, rather than strengthen them. The drugs, called “bisphosphonates,” include the popular Fosomax, and are being taken by over 36 million women in this country today.

What drew doctors attention was the appearance of a rare, serious fracture of the thigh bone (femur) with minimal trauma, that usually only occurs due to accidents or in the elderly or frail. Nineteen of the twenty women reported in the study had been on the drug Fosamax for 5 years or longer.

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Although the complication is so far rare, the fact that so many women are taking the drug, that many of them have been on the drugs for more than five years, and that the drug accumulates in the bone and stays there for many years, signals a warning that many more women may yet develop fractures due to taking the drug.

How Does A Drug to Prevent Fractures End Up Creating Them?
Adapted from The Ageless Woman: Natural Health and Beauty After Forty with Maharishi Ayurveda, by Nancy Lonsdorf, M.D.

Your bones are not static. They are constantly undergoing a process of remodeling, or rebuilding. Just as a jet plane must be inspected regularly for tiny cracks in its steel structure, your bones are continually monitored for weak areas and then repaired by this remodeling process. To accomplish this, osteoclasts, or bone-eating cells, continually chew holes in your bones to get rid of weaker, older bone, and osteoblasts, or bone-making cells, fill in these holes with new, stronger bone.

The speed at which remodeling of your bone occurs is your bone turnover rate, and it depends on the coordination between removing old bone and making new bone. If bone is chewed up faster than the resultant gaps can be filled, your bones may develop thin, weak spots where breaks can easily occur. And this is exactly what tends to occur in some women at menopause: Tiny cracks and empty "potholes" accumulate faster than they can be filled in, making the bone weaker and more prone to fracture.

Fosamax, a drug belonging to the class called bisphosphonates, slows down the rate of resorption or "chewing up," so that bone density does not decrease, but actually increases. The immediate effect is a reduction of fracture risk by over 50 % in the first year, which is why the drugs have been found useful in the short-term for women at immediate high risk of fracture.

However, in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. If we manipulate the body powerfully over time without the guidance of the body's own inner intelligence---blocking an important self-repair mechanism --- there is likely to be some fallout somewhere.

Indeed, experts years ago were concerned that the slowed bone turnover rates created by Fosamax might mean that tiny stress fractures would not be removed and replaced in a timely manner, and could eventually result in weaker bones that were more prone to fracture. It was felt altogether possible that women who took these drugs for ten years or more would end up with weaker bones than they started with.

Unfortunately, the recent study reports of women taking Fosamax for over 5 years who sustained severe fractures with little or no provocation strongly suggests that this is indeed exactly what has happened.

Drugs for Menopause and Aging in Women

If you are a woman, the scenario of giving drugs to millions of women for conditions associated with menopause and aging that are discovered to have serious side-effects is all too familiar. Only six years ago, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopause was found to increase stroke, heart attack and breast cancer risk and lost its prominent role in preventing and treating the many complications associated with menopause including osteoporosis. At that time, many doctors shifted from HRT to drugs like Fosamax, to prevent and treat osteoporosis. Hence the large numbers of women on the drug approaching 5-7 years of use today.

Now again, many doctors and their patients will be looking for an alternative to bisphosphonate drugs for osteoporosis, and rightly so. But will they look far enough?

Rather than simply substitute yet another drug to "prevent" osteoporosis, which will likely lead eventually to more side-effects, it would be more useful to re-examine our entire approach to maintaining health after menopause.

The understanding of Maharishi Ayurveda (MAV) for thousands of years has been that menopause and aging are normal aspects of life and do not need to lead to degeneration or disease. There is no need to "replace" hormones, because they are no longer meant to be there and are no longer needed in "youthful" amounts. Rather, MAV describes that disease and degeneration after menopause are due mainly to our diet, lifestyle, stress and toxins, and provides effective knowledge and procedures to handle all of these naturally.

Fortunately, since the downfall of HRT, the medical community has begin to echo this age-old wisdom of Maharishi Ayurveda. Now we must put that understanding into practice, and begin to approach osteoporosis as the disease of lifestyle and diet that it is. Healthy bones are a product of healthy living. True prevention begins in childhood with a healthy diet and routine, and must continue throughout our lives.

Evidence-Based Natural Approaches for the Prevention of Osteoporosis
Fortunately, Nature has provided a variety of natural ways to keep our bones strong. While our bones are programmed to stay strong with normal use and a wholesome diet, unfortunately our modern-day sedentary lifestyles often do not provide the kind of exercise and diet that we need to automatically maintain strong bones. However, a host of recent studies indicates that with a bit of extra attention, it is altogether possible to increase bone density and maintain it throughout life, even after menopause.

Here are some important findings and recommendations to help you shore up your bones and stay strong:

• Exercise daily for at least thirty minutes. Include light weights or other resistance exercise to build muscle and bone strength, as well as brisk walking or other aerobic activity to improve circulation, digestion, and metabolism.
• Include calcium rich foods in your daily diet, totaling 1,200 -1,000 mg/day, with supplements if needed.
• Be sure to get adequate sunshine. If you can't, take 800 IU of vitamin D daily.
• Give yourself an abhyanga — oil massage — daily to help balance your vata and nourish your bones.
• Reduce meat intake and include a variety of organic, non-GMO soy products in your diet. Get enough protein, but not in excess.
• If you are not getting enough calcium in your diet, you may supplement with over-the- counter calcium. However, MAV holds that nutrients in your food are assimilated better and less likely to imbalance your system in any way. You may also wish to take the MAV calcium supplement, "Calcium Support".
• To enhance absorption, use a variety of spices in your daily diet to aid digestion and assimilation of the calcium and nutrients in your food. Bonus: some spices directly balance bone metabolism!