Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article I will talk about bisphosphonates.
Bisphosphonates are drugs that prevent bone breakdown. IN stories about calcium we have already discussed the special cells that extract calcium from the bones. These cells destroy bone, but sometimes the body needs it. He needs to do bone repair or remodeling. So these cells are not harmful, they just sometimes do a lot of unnecessary things.
With osteoporosis, the bone dissolves, and it would be better if there were fewer cells. Cells harmful to bone mineral density are similar to beavers. They gnaw bone from the periphery.
If you imagine beavers gnawing on a bone, it will not look like two logs instead of legs. No. These are microscopic logs. They are only a couple of millimeters long. From the inside, building cells sit in such a log and slowly build up bone. Outside, this log is gnawed by beaver cells.
An ordinary bone in a leg or arm will consist of many such microscopic logs, in which some kind of movement is constantly going on: something grows, and something dissolves. There are about a million of these logs going on in your bones right now.
The logs are small and they are more like matches, not logs. Have you seen small models of houses, cleverly folded from many matches? This is roughly what the bone looks like. It consists of a complex network of small elements, each of which boils with life.
Bisphosphonates adhere to the bone surface and interfere with beaver cells. They do not allow the bone to dissolve, spoil these cells, and they die prematurely. This is how bisphosphonates keep bones from breaking down.
They are not evil
Bisphosphonates are not at all a poison that kills everyone. No. They know how to be caring. Bisphosphonates choke beavers that destroy bone, but protect and save the building cells. Those very builders who, on the contrary, build up bone mass.
Or angry?
But not everything is good there. Bisphosphonates prevent bones from breaking down, but they also prevent bones from growing normally. They kind of freeze the bone. And this is not very profitable.
It's not for nothing that there are two types of cells in bones that do the opposite job. Living bone is not a stone. It must constantly be rebuilt.
In order for the metabolism to take place in the bones, the bones must dissolve, grow and strengthen. These are all different processes that are going on at a different pace. Bone can dissolve the fastest. That's why there are problems.
Violate mineralization
So bisphosphonates freeze the bone in one state. After this, the bone cannot grow normally, cannot repair normally, and cannot rebuild normally. This is bad? It’s better than just a broken hip. Because older people often die from a hip fracture.
It turns out that bisphosphonates do not allow a decrease in bone mineral density, but normal mineralization is also inhibited.
This is due to the structure of bisphosphonates. Bee is two. Phosphonates are phosphorus compounds. That is, they have two phosphorus atoms inside them. Due to phosphorus, bisphosphonates are similar to our native compound pyrophosphate. This pyrophosphate inhibits bone mineralization. He is bad.
Bones normally contain alkaline phosphatase (we already talked about her). Alkaline phosphatase breaks down pyrophosphate and bone strengthens miraculously. But alkaline phosphatase cannot cope with bisphosphonates. Therefore, they prevent bones from strengthening properly. It's not very useful, but it's not too scary either.
So bisphosphonates save the elderly from fractures, but they do not add health. Such grandfathers and grandmothers will no longer have to jump.
It should be noted right away that bisphosphonates are used to restrain bone destruction against the background of cancer metastases. Here it is generally necessary to pray for bisphosphonates, because no one else knows how to do that.
In short, these are serious drugs with a bunch of side effects that save lives. Therefore, always consult your doctor and do not self-medicate.
