Dr. Sanda Moldovan explains how bisphosphonate drugs like Fosamax and Boniva block bone remodeling and can prevent your mouth from healing after dental work. These medications lose their hip-fracture benefit after three years and may increase atypical fracture risk after seven years, so long-term users should talk to their doctor about stopping.
Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Sanda. Thank you for watching my channel. I wanted to address the question that I get a lot about osteoporosis medication. Something called bisphosphonates, things like Fosamax, Boniva. You probably all remember Sally Fields, who was doing this commercial about how great Boniva is for her bones. But what exactly is the problem with this medication, especially when it comes to oral health, is that this medication actually cuts off the bone formation cycle so the bone is not able to heal. How is this dangerous for you? Is that if you're going to your dentist and you're taking this type of medication, especially in higher doses, you might not be healing while following an extraction or any kind of oral surgery procedure because the bone is unable to heal. And what is the real story with this medication is that the Merck studies, which is the company that is actually making this medication, has shown that after three years, this medication doesn't even help in reducing hip fractures. And what's worse, after seven years, it actually increases the risk of atypical fractures in people taking these kind of medications. So is it really helpful to take this osteoporosis medication? Maybe for the first three years, but after that, the studies show that it has no effect. So I would encourage you to talk to your doctor if you've been on osteoporosis medication for more than three years, to ask them if it's really good for you to still be on it. There's other things that you could be doing for osteoporosis. For example, there's medical foods that I will be talking about in next week's episode to help you with osteoporosis from a nutritional perspective, which have been shown to increase the bone mineral density of much more than Boniva or Fosamax or any of the other medications ever will. Until next time, look into your osteoporosis medication and see if you really need to take it.
