This is great. But, the root of the problem for most postmenopausal women is simply the lack of estrogen. You need estrogen to make bone. Men and women do. Men are mostly protected from osteoporosis because they convert testosterone to estrogen. Elderly men have more estrogen than postmenopausal women. Their levels go to near zero. It's a tragedy that more doctors don't recommend HRT for older women, at least some level of replacement, maybe not up to peak levels when they were younger. The lack of estrogen causes a lot of suffering.
When I was 32 I had a sudden cerebral spine fracture, I was diagnosed as having severe Osteoporosis(I was told my bones were like that of 80 year old); The doctors didn't bother much as I was living with Achondroplasia (Dwarfism) and they attributed everything to it.
I'm on bisphosphonate treatment (zoledronic acid), I've already had 5 of those injections and I recently learnt that it could lead to severe side effects and not that effective for treating Osteoporosis.
Meanwhile I underwent a genetic testing and the result came out as I have COMP8 mutation which leads to
Multiple epiphyseal dysplasia or Pseudo-achondroplasia; Both of which affects bones to different extent and I have symptoms for both.
I'm now looking for treatments which can help improve my bone density or at-least prevent further deterioration, CCN3 looks really promising. I even started a project to monitor bone health using BMD (Dexa) reports[1] and to submit reports for research (I'm looking for researchers in this area).
1 in 3 women over the age of 50 years and 1 in 5 men will experience osteoporotic fractures in their lifetime, According to this article more than 200 million people worldwide suffer from osteoporosis but I feel investment in bone health research is not enough.
Men are also more likely to do strength training, which also helps build bone density. Women are also more likely to regularly perform cardio/aerobic exercises, which can reduce bone density when done in excess and without adequate nutrition. Lack of estrogen is of course the root, but I think we can't dismiss behavior differences contributing to the effect. In my experience, many women do minimal to no strength training because they're worried that muscle tone will make them look masculine. Maybe this is a really bad idea to live by.
> many women do minimal to no strength training because they're worried that muscle tone will make them look masculine.
I've observed this as being a very widespread belief too, and it seems like we need to be giving women a better biology education or something, because holy shit is it wrong.
I guess it's more a misconception among the general non weight training public that this stuff is so easy you can basically develop a muscular, masculine body on accident.
For all but the youngest and most genetically blessed males it takes years of very specific diet and exercise regimes. Or steroids.
Whereas just adding some weighted squats into her routine will have immense health benefits for most women as well as making their body look more feminine and attractive.
Men could also stop policing women's bodies and activities. I have had my doctor tell me to do load-bearing exercises but I've also heard men mock not just masculine-looking women, but women who are interested in male-coded activities like weight lifting.
No one is "policing bodies and activities" here, sounds to me like you are just being oversensitive and trying to twist the discussion into one that hates on guys. This sort of coded misandry doesn't work on me anymore, it's so overused, many people have wised up.
So I will say it again: any woman who thinks she will accidentally develop a masculine physique is a fool. She has a poor understanding of weight training and the human body.
Just as any man who thinks he'll get that physique on accident is also a fool!
I wager more men like it than men who mock it. Sports Illustrated is popular for a reason, fit women being considered attractive is very mainstream. There will always be a few assholes that will mock anybody for anything, but what can anybody do about that?
You must have heard it already but you won’t turn into Arnold by doing bodyweight squats 3 days a week for a year. It will, however, shape your body and rearrange fat deposits into more conventionally attractive positions and I don’t think there’s anyone around saying that’s not attractive.
Far more men like women with good-looking fit bodies. It's a statistically insignificant minority that likes "fat women", so "men" overall aren't policing women's bodies to the point of influencing women to not go to the gym. It's largely women who do it to each other.
Read of a study years ago that had postmenopausal wpmen do weight training - giving a dramatic 40% increase in bone density in 6 weeks IIRC the details.
It's not that frail people need to be inactive, but that inactivity causes frailty.
Is that trained or untrained? "Newbie gains" is a real thing, mostly caused by people going from a negative health state to a "normal" health state (or inactivity to basic activity).
I can see a rapid increase in untrained people but more marginal increases in trained people because of this.
> they're worried that muscle tone will make them look masculine
Yes, this is a common concern. It would be good to show women what it looks like to workout hard six days a week for more than one year. (My point: That is an unrealistic weight lifting schedule for 99% of women.) They still won't look very masculine. Very well toned, but not very masculine. My advice when women raise this concern: "If you get too big, just ease off. Maintaining is way easier than growing."
It's been done. It doesn't matter that you can't see the abs on 50% of the women on the Olympic team. Some think they'll get the physique of a professional body builder who's been abusing steroids for a decade anyway.
Anecdotally, I have never heard this sentiment from other women I know. That doesn't mean they aren't _thinking_ it, though. Maybe it also depends on location - where I live it is very common for both men and women to do some form of strength training.
I've been lifting weights on and off for over a decade and although I do have visible abs, that's more by nature of low body fat percentage than lifting. The point is - no matter how hard I train, I've never even gotten close to what I would consider as "too big" for my preference. Even as your muscle mass increases, the end result just seems to be a more _compact_ and efficient look rather than "bulky" in any sense of the word.
> Women are also more likely to regularly perform cardio/aerobic exercises, which can reduce bone density when done in excess and without adequate nutrition.
What is the biological mechanism behind this statement?
Elevated cortisol (in response to the stress of running or whatever) increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth. This isn't necessarily an issue for anyone doing lots of cardio, but it's an increase in risk. It also reduces protein synthesis, which is important for both muscle and bone (it isn't just calcium).
> Elevated cortisol (in response to the stress of running or whatever) increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth
Cortisol is also released during strength training, though.
Seems like a real issue is low impact cardio, which isn't negative for bone density (as far as I can tell) but does have a theoretical opportunity cost when you could be doing weight-bearing cardio, which does improve bone density.
Agreed with littlestymaar's comment higher up, though, that exercise rates being what they are, the theoretical opportunity cost may be quite theoretical.
> Elevated cortisol … increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth
Would that also be true for caffeine consumption? IIRC it increases cortisol levels, but I don't really know much about what else it does, I've only read the Wikipedia page and gone "Wow, I'm really glad I've already cut back".
I sit in a lot of doctor training sessions and the feelings on hrt have changed a lot in the last 5-10 years. It’s now well thought of and an acceptable risk. Apparently the quality of life improvement is huge compared to the relatively minor risk
No, nothing quite like HN (aggregator) exists that I've found, which is unfortunate. In this space a lot it seems most of the discussion happens on twitter, discord, or between blog posts and for the most part not in comment sections. Additionally med/bio is such a wide field I get the sense most people stick to their niche and struggle to keep up with that. However for news sites and latest:
We know microgravity is terrible for us but we don't have data on 1/3 gravity. We might be fine. Or maybe we'd be fine if we took this drug, did some weight training, and added twenty minutes of centrifuge every day.
For the trip, there are several ways we could set up spin gravity.
I just wanted to say, I really appreciate your tangent here. Space travel didn't come to my mind at all and your comment made me feel the tiny things contributing to larger stories, for a moment. Caught me weirdly off-guard.
Bone density loss in space is estimated at a loss of 1-2% of total bone density per month of microgravity exposure. The worst cases of terrestrial bone loss are around 5% of total bone mineral density per year.
You're ignoring the prime reason humans aren't going to travel to Mars anytime soon: radiation. Good luck getting there without accumulating a huge dose of hard radiation that gives you cancer. This is why we should be worrying about building human settlements on the Moon first: we can put them underground (for radiation shielding, plus other benefits like avoiding meteorites), and the travel time is so short that the cumulative radiation exposure is very low. 3 days of exposure to cosmic rays is very low compared to a year or so, or at best 6 months.
Once we have manufacturing capability on the Moon, we can build much larger ships that have some decent radiation shielding.
Of course, the low gravity causes a bunch more problems. But here again, with significant space- and Moon-based industry, we could build much larger ships with spin gravity. This doesn't help the people working on the Moon though, but at least here we could cycle them on and off the Moon every 6 months or so, since the trip is only 3 days, so they could come back to Earth and re-acclimate to 1g periodically.
Can't wait for breaking a hip at 80 to be a thing of the past. Bone health is also a contributor in life expectancy and health of a person altogether. I read a study if you can assure your bones are healthy you can assure your health longterm.
Is bone health like grip strength? Grip strength correlates with life expectancy because it is a good proxy for overall health, but if you just work on your grip strength you won't get much healthier.
By all accounts seems like this is a cure to age related bone loss. Almost everyone suffers from age related bone loss of some degree. Would like love to hear news about commercialisation of this.
So long as its safe. Almost always, these things don't pan out... or at least the first molecular iteration. That's the primary reason medicine is so expensive.
In my 20 mins of searching; it looks like it's CCN3 is produced by humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOV_(gene)) and presumably humans have the receptors for it as well - though I'm uncertain if the same effect in mice will translate to humans. Since naturally occurring genes and genetic sequences are not patentable even if they don't commercialize you could probably get a 3rd party to make it reasonably cheaply. So if it is found to work I wouldn't even worry about commercialization.
This is great. My mother had osteoporosis and I hope they come up with a therapy she can use!
However as a currently breastfeeding mother, I'm asked by doctors to take calcium supplements every day (I only remember it once a week or so), and they threaten me with future osteoporosis if I don't take it. But these researchers are saying that breastfeeding mothers' bones aren't affected despite calcium depletion?
Fwiw I've also read research that the bones are indeed affected (as measured by density) but they rebound after you stop breastfeeding. I remember that the most depletion happened in the lumbar region, and that the rebound didn't happen fully if there was "parity" (multiple kids).
The conventional wisdom and common recommendation is to supplement with calcium, but I saw at least one study stating that it is not necessary: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9584497/
I rather suspect that if you are already eating a diet deficient in calcium, breastfeeding may exacerbate the issue, and since the supplements tend to have a poor bioavailability, taking them even if you don't need to isn't going to be harmful. Eat a healthy balance of foods and you are probably fine.
I may have a nurse for a mother, but I am very much not a doctor.
My water supply appears to be flush with calcium - I have to poke my shower head's holes out every few months. I wonder if it's good for me or if it's in too large of excess. Would probably help if I remembered the vitamin D more often, since you need that to absorb the calcium.
You still need to provide calcium to the body to deploy to one's own bones. This hormone apparently directs that process. It can't do that in the absence of sufficient calcium, of course, so supplements still seem like a good idea.
“One of the remarkable things about these findings is that if we hadn’t been studying female mice, which unfortunately is the norm in biomedical research, then we could have completely missed out on this finding…”
Can you please share some evidence (peer-reviewed scientific research publications / clinical data) supporting this? Curious about the potential mechanisms.
Amazing! Can anyone hypothesize whether it could have adverse effect towards cancer cells? Im dealing with someone who has osteoporosis due to cancer treatment.
> To test the ability of the hormone to assist in bone healing, the researchers created a hydrogel patch that could be applied directly to the site of a bone fracture, where it would slowly release CCN3 for two weeks. In elderly mice, bone fractures don’t usually heal well. However, the CCN3 patch spurred the formation of new bone at the site of the fracture, contributing to youthful healing of the fracture.
So, uh, did this research involve breaking mice bones?
Absolutely, there is probably some jig to hold the mouse and do the break reliably in the same way each time. I knew a researcher that did research that involved killing newborn baby rabbits and he said that he hated that part of the job but kept reminding himself that he is working on a cure for very sick human children that currently had no hope of treatment. It was exploratory research so there was only a small chance of success and many years later there was success in a unrelated field so in the end his work was redundant - but he couldn't have known that at the time.
By my morals it's ok to kill animals for the benefit of humans, animals kill animals for sustenance and for now we are still a part of nature. In the future perhaps we won't need to and I'll happily support that. For now in order to get to that future we must do the unpleasant thing with an understanding that it should be not be done egregiously, gratuitously, or needlessly. Not for the sake of the animals, although that is a given, but for the sake of the humans involved in harming those animals as I think doing such things does take it's toll.
You know when they kill a mouse in the lab they call it a 'sarcrifice'. There's some harrowing stuff and I personally would probably not be able to do it.
I think most ppl who do it just happened to find themselves in a part of their academic career where they have little choice if they want to proceed.
Probably. And then giving the mice the superpowers of wolverine.
Everybody loves this when it happens to a human in a film, no matter how much radioactive spiders will be crushed. If this makes you feel better while watching your plaster dry, I would bet my money on that sedation was applied and, if that old mice is still alive, it feels now like a two months old heartthrob.
Stories of mice being used in gruesome experiments always give me a bit of moral outrage, but when there's one in my house I have no qualms about killing it with extreme prejudice. So, they should just round up all the home-invader mice for experimentation- my conscious would rest easier knowing they're all just repaying their debt to society
According to the unsolicited email I regularly receive, there are already products on the market for making bones longer. And lasting all night, which would I guess make it significantly easier to get out of bed in the morning.
I'm missing something, what good are long bones, specifically? Seems to me strength is the most important parameter, especially in aging populations..?
@dang or whoever: I want to protest the recent (as in, after it was originally posted) addition of "in mice" to the title of this thread. It turns a significant scientific discovery into something that seems tawdry and meaningless. Discoveries in mice involving novel biological mechanisms can be important for at least 3 reasons:
- The mechanisms discovered work exactly the same way in humans. This is not a long shot at all, as mice aren't that far from humans genetically and physiologically.
- The mechanisms work slightly different in humans, pointing us to different natural solutions to a problem.
- The mechanisms work entirely different in humans, pointing us to potentially-important evolutionary divergences (maybe the biology was improved on in humans).
In any of these instances, the findings remain important, and "in mice" just cheapens that. After all, this work was published in Nature, which is still one of the top journals in any research field. The folks running the journal may have their issues, but they're not all idiots.
This is great. But, the root of the problem for most postmenopausal women is simply the lack of estrogen. You need estrogen to make bone. Men and women do. Men are mostly protected from osteoporosis because they convert testosterone to estrogen. Elderly men have more estrogen than postmenopausal women. Their levels go to near zero. It's a tragedy that more doctors don't recommend HRT for older women, at least some level of replacement, maybe not up to peak levels when they were younger. The lack of estrogen causes a lot of suffering.
When I was 32 I had a sudden cerebral spine fracture, I was diagnosed as having severe Osteoporosis(I was told my bones were like that of 80 year old); The doctors didn't bother much as I was living with Achondroplasia (Dwarfism) and they attributed everything to it.
I'm on bisphosphonate treatment (zoledronic acid), I've already had 5 of those injections and I recently learnt that it could lead to severe side effects and not that effective for treating Osteoporosis.
Meanwhile I underwent a genetic testing and the result came out as I have COMP8 mutation which leads to Multiple epiphyseal dysplasia or Pseudo-achondroplasia; Both of which affects bones to different extent and I have symptoms for both.
I'm now looking for treatments which can help improve my bone density or at-least prevent further deterioration, CCN3 looks really promising. I even started a project to monitor bone health using BMD (Dexa) reports[1] and to submit reports for research (I'm looking for researchers in this area).
1 in 3 women over the age of 50 years and 1 in 5 men will experience osteoporotic fractures in their lifetime, According to this article more than 200 million people worldwide suffer from osteoporosis but I feel investment in bone health research is not enough.
[1] https://bonehealthtracker.com/
Men are also more likely to do strength training, which also helps build bone density. Women are also more likely to regularly perform cardio/aerobic exercises, which can reduce bone density when done in excess and without adequate nutrition. Lack of estrogen is of course the root, but I think we can't dismiss behavior differences contributing to the effect. In my experience, many women do minimal to no strength training because they're worried that muscle tone will make them look masculine. Maybe this is a really bad idea to live by.
> many women do minimal to no strength training because they're worried that muscle tone will make them look masculine.
I've observed this as being a very widespread belief too, and it seems like we need to be giving women a better biology education or something, because holy shit is it wrong.
I guess it's more a misconception among the general non weight training public that this stuff is so easy you can basically develop a muscular, masculine body on accident.
For all but the youngest and most genetically blessed males it takes years of very specific diet and exercise regimes. Or steroids.
Whereas just adding some weighted squats into her routine will have immense health benefits for most women as well as making their body look more feminine and attractive.
Men could also stop policing women's bodies and activities. I have had my doctor tell me to do load-bearing exercises but I've also heard men mock not just masculine-looking women, but women who are interested in male-coded activities like weight lifting.
No one is "policing bodies and activities" here, sounds to me like you are just being oversensitive and trying to twist the discussion into one that hates on guys. This sort of coded misandry doesn't work on me anymore, it's so overused, many people have wised up.
So I will say it again: any woman who thinks she will accidentally develop a masculine physique is a fool. She has a poor understanding of weight training and the human body.
Just as any man who thinks he'll get that physique on accident is also a fool!
I wager more men like it than men who mock it. Sports Illustrated is popular for a reason, fit women being considered attractive is very mainstream. There will always be a few assholes that will mock anybody for anything, but what can anybody do about that?
You must have heard it already but you won’t turn into Arnold by doing bodyweight squats 3 days a week for a year. It will, however, shape your body and rearrange fat deposits into more conventionally attractive positions and I don’t think there’s anyone around saying that’s not attractive.
Far more men like women with good-looking fit bodies. It's a statistically insignificant minority that likes "fat women", so "men" overall aren't policing women's bodies to the point of influencing women to not go to the gym. It's largely women who do it to each other.
> heard men mock.., women who are interested in male-coded activities like weight lifting.
This sounds like some really insecure men
Read of a study years ago that had postmenopausal wpmen do weight training - giving a dramatic 40% increase in bone density in 6 weeks IIRC the details.
It's not that frail people need to be inactive, but that inactivity causes frailty.
I'd like to see that, the studies I've seen show around 1-5% per year.
Is that trained or untrained? "Newbie gains" is a real thing, mostly caused by people going from a negative health state to a "normal" health state (or inactivity to basic activity).
I can see a rapid increase in untrained people but more marginal increases in trained people because of this.
https://brokenclipboard.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/media-cover...
It's been done. It doesn't matter that you can't see the abs on 50% of the women on the Olympic team. Some think they'll get the physique of a professional body builder who's been abusing steroids for a decade anyway.
Anecdotally, I have never heard this sentiment from other women I know. That doesn't mean they aren't _thinking_ it, though. Maybe it also depends on location - where I live it is very common for both men and women to do some form of strength training.
I've been lifting weights on and off for over a decade and although I do have visible abs, that's more by nature of low body fat percentage than lifting. The point is - no matter how hard I train, I've never even gotten close to what I would consider as "too big" for my preference. Even as your muscle mass increases, the end result just seems to be a more _compact_ and efficient look rather than "bulky" in any sense of the word.
Steroids have a lot to answer for when it comes to perceptions around exercise in general.
> Women are also more likely to regularly perform cardio/aerobic exercises, which can reduce bone density when done in excess and without adequate nutrition.
What is the biological mechanism behind this statement?
Elevated cortisol (in response to the stress of running or whatever) increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth. This isn't necessarily an issue for anyone doing lots of cardio, but it's an increase in risk. It also reduces protein synthesis, which is important for both muscle and bone (it isn't just calcium).
> Elevated cortisol (in response to the stress of running or whatever) increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth
Cortisol is also released during strength training, though.
Seems like a real issue is low impact cardio, which isn't negative for bone density (as far as I can tell) but does have a theoretical opportunity cost when you could be doing weight-bearing cardio, which does improve bone density.
Agreed with littlestymaar's comment higher up, though, that exercise rates being what they are, the theoretical opportunity cost may be quite theoretical.
> Elevated cortisol … increases bone resorption and inhibits bone growth
Would that also be true for caffeine consumption? IIRC it increases cortisol levels, but I don't really know much about what else it does, I've only read the Wikipedia page and gone "Wow, I'm really glad I've already cut back".
I sit in a lot of doctor training sessions and the feelings on hrt have changed a lot in the last 5-10 years. It’s now well thought of and an acceptable risk. Apparently the quality of life improvement is huge compared to the relatively minor risk
> . It's a tragedy that more doctors don't recommend HRT for older women, at least some level of replacement
Once you get on this your only options are 1. use till you die 2. stop and face consequences of suppressed natural estrogen production from HRT.
Is that right?
Is there a good HN equivalent specifically for science/med/bio news? I do find interesting papers here on the topic although it's not the core focus.
No, nothing quite like HN (aggregator) exists that I've found, which is unfortunate. In this space a lot it seems most of the discussion happens on twitter, discord, or between blog posts and for the most part not in comment sections. Additionally med/bio is such a wide field I get the sense most people stick to their niche and struggle to keep up with that. However for news sites and latest:
https://endpts.com/
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/
https://www.statnews.com/
https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=news-and-views
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/trending/
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/ - you can filter it by field
https://www.science.org/
https://www.eurekalert.org/
https://phys.org/
This will incidentally be helpful to space travel to Mars and living there.
Among the dozen other serious health problems with zero/low gravity like oh serious eye problems, humans sadly aren't going to Mars anytime soon.
Then again this would need to be tested on the moon or in orbit first, might not make a difference even with the hormone.
(vitamin K2 might help too)
We know microgravity is terrible for us but we don't have data on 1/3 gravity. We might be fine. Or maybe we'd be fine if we took this drug, did some weight training, and added twenty minutes of centrifuge every day.
For the trip, there are several ways we could set up spin gravity.
I just wanted to say, I really appreciate your tangent here. Space travel didn't come to my mind at all and your comment made me feel the tiny things contributing to larger stories, for a moment. Caught me weirdly off-guard.
Bone density loss in space is estimated at a loss of 1-2% of total bone density per month of microgravity exposure. The worst cases of terrestrial bone loss are around 5% of total bone mineral density per year.
One step closer to being able to make Belters.
If you lose 10 per cent of your bone density on the way to Mars, but then live in the conditions of 0.33 G, doesn't it cancel out?
The real nasty problem would be getting back to Earth.
I'm expecting mice will do the job. Why else is research centered about them?
You're ignoring the prime reason humans aren't going to travel to Mars anytime soon: radiation. Good luck getting there without accumulating a huge dose of hard radiation that gives you cancer. This is why we should be worrying about building human settlements on the Moon first: we can put them underground (for radiation shielding, plus other benefits like avoiding meteorites), and the travel time is so short that the cumulative radiation exposure is very low. 3 days of exposure to cosmic rays is very low compared to a year or so, or at best 6 months.
Once we have manufacturing capability on the Moon, we can build much larger ships that have some decent radiation shielding.
Of course, the low gravity causes a bunch more problems. But here again, with significant space- and Moon-based industry, we could build much larger ships with spin gravity. This doesn't help the people working on the Moon though, but at least here we could cycle them on and off the Moon every 6 months or so, since the trip is only 3 days, so they could come back to Earth and re-acclimate to 1g periodically.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/explorers-will-fac...
Can't wait for breaking a hip at 80 to be a thing of the past. Bone health is also a contributor in life expectancy and health of a person altogether. I read a study if you can assure your bones are healthy you can assure your health longterm.
Is bone health like grip strength? Grip strength correlates with life expectancy because it is a good proxy for overall health, but if you just work on your grip strength you won't get much healthier.
Wasn’t the best contributor to life expectancy vascular & endothelial health?
By all accounts seems like this is a cure to age related bone loss. Almost everyone suffers from age related bone loss of some degree. Would like love to hear news about commercialisation of this.
So long as its safe. Almost always, these things don't pan out... or at least the first molecular iteration. That's the primary reason medicine is so expensive.
In my 20 mins of searching; it looks like it's CCN3 is produced by humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOV_(gene)) and presumably humans have the receptors for it as well - though I'm uncertain if the same effect in mice will translate to humans. Since naturally occurring genes and genetic sequences are not patentable even if they don't commercialize you could probably get a 3rd party to make it reasonably cheaply. So if it is found to work I wouldn't even worry about commercialization.
Does it do anything for connective tissue?
According to the article, that's the next thing they're going to test for.
This is great. My mother had osteoporosis and I hope they come up with a therapy she can use!
However as a currently breastfeeding mother, I'm asked by doctors to take calcium supplements every day (I only remember it once a week or so), and they threaten me with future osteoporosis if I don't take it. But these researchers are saying that breastfeeding mothers' bones aren't affected despite calcium depletion?
Fwiw I've also read research that the bones are indeed affected (as measured by density) but they rebound after you stop breastfeeding. I remember that the most depletion happened in the lumbar region, and that the rebound didn't happen fully if there was "parity" (multiple kids).
So idk. I hope their premise is correct.
The conventional wisdom and common recommendation is to supplement with calcium, but I saw at least one study stating that it is not necessary: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9584497/
I rather suspect that if you are already eating a diet deficient in calcium, breastfeeding may exacerbate the issue, and since the supplements tend to have a poor bioavailability, taking them even if you don't need to isn't going to be harmful. Eat a healthy balance of foods and you are probably fine.
I may have a nurse for a mother, but I am very much not a doctor.
My water supply appears to be flush with calcium - I have to poke my shower head's holes out every few months. I wonder if it's good for me or if it's in too large of excess. Would probably help if I remembered the vitamin D more often, since you need that to absorb the calcium.
You still need to provide calcium to the body to deploy to one's own bones. This hormone apparently directs that process. It can't do that in the absence of sufficient calcium, of course, so supplements still seem like a good idea.
> (I only remember it once a week or so)
Yikes. How about one of those 7-compartment SMTWTFS pill boxes? Store it alongside your morning coffee supply.
Wonder if it would help teeth as well?
I don't know about this hormone, but human clinical trials for a tooth-regrowing drug will begin in September. It was successful in animal models.
https://www.engadget.com/the-worlds-first-tooth-regrowing-dr...
Ah, bone healing juice.
It sounds like CCN3 (NOV) has widespread effects in the body. Also, this wikipedia page needs updating for this result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOV_(gene)
“One of the remarkable things about these findings is that if we hadn’t been studying female mice, which unfortunately is the norm in biomedical research, then we could have completely missed out on this finding…”
Imagine then how much we missed from male mice.
In young age mango fruit eaters get strong bones till old age or even death
Can you please share some evidence (peer-reviewed scientific research publications / clinical data) supporting this? Curious about the potential mechanisms.
Amazing! Can anyone hypothesize whether it could have adverse effect towards cancer cells? Im dealing with someone who has osteoporosis due to cancer treatment.
Probably promote cancer cell growth as well
> Scientists discover a new hormone that can build strong bones in mice
Why do they need strong bones in mice ? Biological weapons ?
So is it reasonable to assume that males who induce lactation will also produce this bone building maternal brain hormone?
If a person goes on eating mango fruit in the seasons his bones get stronger and that calcium harmones are triggered
In the medical world “Could” means you are step 2 of 100 to a released product
Just what we need, super strong mice!
Oh great, just what my cat wants: crunchier mice.
> To test the ability of the hormone to assist in bone healing, the researchers created a hydrogel patch that could be applied directly to the site of a bone fracture, where it would slowly release CCN3 for two weeks. In elderly mice, bone fractures don’t usually heal well. However, the CCN3 patch spurred the formation of new bone at the site of the fracture, contributing to youthful healing of the fracture.
So, uh, did this research involve breaking mice bones?
Absolutely, there is probably some jig to hold the mouse and do the break reliably in the same way each time. I knew a researcher that did research that involved killing newborn baby rabbits and he said that he hated that part of the job but kept reminding himself that he is working on a cure for very sick human children that currently had no hope of treatment. It was exploratory research so there was only a small chance of success and many years later there was success in a unrelated field so in the end his work was redundant - but he couldn't have known that at the time.
By my morals it's ok to kill animals for the benefit of humans, animals kill animals for sustenance and for now we are still a part of nature. In the future perhaps we won't need to and I'll happily support that. For now in order to get to that future we must do the unpleasant thing with an understanding that it should be not be done egregiously, gratuitously, or needlessly. Not for the sake of the animals, although that is a given, but for the sake of the humans involved in harming those animals as I think doing such things does take it's toll.
You know when they kill a mouse in the lab they call it a 'sarcrifice'. There's some harrowing stuff and I personally would probably not be able to do it.
I think most ppl who do it just happened to find themselves in a part of their academic career where they have little choice if they want to proceed.
Probably. And then giving the mice the superpowers of wolverine.
Everybody loves this when it happens to a human in a film, no matter how much radioactive spiders will be crushed. If this makes you feel better while watching your plaster dry, I would bet my money on that sedation was applied and, if that old mice is still alive, it feels now like a two months old heartthrob.
Stories of mice being used in gruesome experiments always give me a bit of moral outrage, but when there's one in my house I have no qualms about killing it with extreme prejudice. So, they should just round up all the home-invader mice for experimentation- my conscious would rest easier knowing they're all just repaying their debt to society
Naw, they found mice that tripped while running, it’s that simple man.
Tell me about the rabbits again George.
key word elderly provides an alibi.
The billion dollar question: can this somehow help develop treatment for making bones longer?
No, once the epiphyseal plates close further growth of long bones is impossible. Only intervention during puberty can influence final adult height.
According to the unsolicited email I regularly receive, there are already products on the market for making bones longer. And lasting all night, which would I guess make it significantly easier to get out of bed in the morning.
Reminds me of this article from a few years ago about guys getting leg-lengthening surgery: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/leg-lengthen...
I'm missing something, what good are long bones, specifically? Seems to me strength is the most important parameter, especially in aging populations..?
Smh, these slenderman cosplayers are really going too far.
This is getting downvoted, but they only need to find one short, insecure billionaire to make this comment come true.
It's ok if you drink plenty of malk.
It's got vitamin R
Never heard of malk. Googling it just yields a brand.
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Triggering Paget’s disease in 3, 2,…
@dang or whoever: I want to protest the recent (as in, after it was originally posted) addition of "in mice" to the title of this thread. It turns a significant scientific discovery into something that seems tawdry and meaningless. Discoveries in mice involving novel biological mechanisms can be important for at least 3 reasons:
- The mechanisms discovered work exactly the same way in humans. This is not a long shot at all, as mice aren't that far from humans genetically and physiologically.
- The mechanisms work slightly different in humans, pointing us to different natural solutions to a problem.
- The mechanisms work entirely different in humans, pointing us to potentially-important evolutionary divergences (maybe the biology was improved on in humans).
In any of these instances, the findings remain important, and "in mice" just cheapens that. After all, this work was published in Nature, which is still one of the top journals in any research field. The folks running the journal may have their issues, but they're not all idiots.
Edit: wording.
> It turns a significant scientific discovery into something that seems tawdry and meaningless.
> Discoveries in mice involving novel biological mechanisms can be important [...]
If discoveries in mice can be important, then how does stating that they're in mice make them less important?
I would say it turns an OK headline into a more precise headline.
Yeah, and why do people always add "in mice" after reading a fortune cookie? It makes their predictions seem so much less serious.