Would you use a drug that poisons a part of your body?
That’s what the medical community is doing to your bones when you take bone drugs.
Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva, Reclast, Zometa, Didronel, Aredia, Skelid… they’re all the same.
Taking them is like feeding poison to the cells your body uses to remodel bone.
Why would they do that when they could have you do something else just as easily: lower your homocysteine?
Because there’s no profit in it. The bone drugs sold almost $10 billion worth this year.
They’re so popular that 10 companies make generic forms of Fosamax alone.
My solution involves using readily available, safe, and inexpensive nutrients that are good for your body for lots of other reasons in addition to lowering homocysteine.
As opposed to bone drugs, which poison your bones. What’s worse is nobody tells you that those drugs can cause bone breaks instead of preventing them. Rare bone breaks in places that your bones should never break.
Researchers studied women taking these drugs – called bisphosphonates – who experienced some sort of fracture. Over 65 percent had a very rare fracture in the middle of their thigh.1
A new study from Finland looked at women ages 55-81 who also had these rare bone breaks. They found that you’re over 90 times more likely to have a rare bone break if you take bone drugs than if you don’t.2
Instead of poisoning your bones, here’s something you can do that will lower your chance of fractures. All you have to do is lower your homocysteine.
I’ve written to you about homocysteine before, and how clearing it away can improve your heart health.
But the reason I’m bringing it up again is that when you correct homocysteine you’re doing a lot of other favors for your body, including one that’s completely ignored by the medical community. You reduce your chance of bone fractures.
Homocysteine has the destructive capacity to prevent your body from making compounds vital to creating collagen and elastin. Your body uses these to build strong healthy bones.
Researchers, at the Mitate Hospital in Japan looked at 628 people who were 65 years old or older. They divided the group in two, and gave half of them 5 mg of folate and 1.5 mg of vitamin B12, which lower homocysteine. The other half got a placebo. The patients kept daily records of falls.
The people taking folic acid and B12 had their homocysteine decrease by 38 percent. The placebo group showed a 31 percent increase in homocysteine.
But here’s the kicker: The folate and B12 group also only had six hip fractures.
There were 27 hip fractures in the placebo group. Almost a 500% increase.3
In other words, those with lower homocysteine were protected from fractures.
And here’s even more evidence that high homocysteine is joined at the hip with fractures.
I found an overlooked meta-analysis, which is a review of other clinical trials, done just a few months ago. It looked at 14,863 people and found a huge 59% increase in overall bone breaks for people with elevated homocysteine.
High homocysteine can also interfere with balance and walking gait, too, contributing further to fractures from falls.
The School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore did a study that revealed high homocysteine meant worsening gait as you get older, a decreased sense of balance, and lower scores on mobility tests.4
Fortunately, you can easily lower your homocysteine to help protect yourself. And it’s something we can do that will improve your health and rather than poisoning a part of your physiology.
All it takes is a few safe and inexpensive supplements that are good for your body. Here’s what I recommend (amounts are daily):
- Vitamin B6 – 50 mg
- Vitamin B12 – 500 mcg
- Vitamin B9 (folate or folic acid) – 800 mcg
- Trimethylglycine (TMG) – 1,000 mg
These are proven homocysteine fighters. One recent study found that a simple treatment with B6, B9, and B12 lowered homocysteine levels and maintained healthy arteries.5
So be sure to get your doctor to measure your homocysteine levels. An ideal result is less than 8 mmol/l. If it’s above that, I recommend you lower your homocysteine. If you want to use the above formula, I have arranged for it to be available all in a simple capsule.
1. Lenart B, Lorich D, Lane J, et. al. “Atypical Fractures Of The Femoral Diaphysis in Postmenopausal Women Taking Alendronate.” NEJM 2008;358(12):1304-6
2. Tamminen I, Yli-Kyyny T, Isaksson H, Turunen M, Tong X, Jurvelin J, Kröger H. “Incidence And Bone Biopsy Findings of Atypical Femoral Fractures.” J Bone Miner Metab. 2013;31(5):585-94.
3. Sato Y, Honda Y, Iwamoto J, Kanoko T, Satoh K. “Effect Of Folate And Mecobalamin On Hip Fractures In Patients With Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” JAMA. 2005; 293(9):1082-8.
4. Ng T, Aung K, Feng L, Scherer S, Yap K. “Homocysteine, Folate, Vitamin B-12, And Physical Function In Older Adults: Cross-Sectional Findings From The Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2012;96(6):1362-8.
5. Schnyder et al. “Decreased Rate … After Lowering Of Plasma Homocysteine Levels.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2001; 345(22):1593-1600.