Methods: Forty-six male Sprague Dawley rats aged 3 months were randomized into six groups. The baseline control (n=6) was sacrificed at the onset of the study. The normal control (n=8) received corn oil (the vehicle of tocotrienol) orally daily and normal saline (the vehicle of buserelin) subcutaneously daily. The buserelin control (n=8) received corn oil orally daily and subcutaneous buserelin injection (75 µg/kg) daily. The calcium control (n=8) was supplemented with 1% calcium in drinking water and daily subcutaneous buserelin injection (75 µg/kg). The remaining rats were given daily oral annatto tocotrienol at 60 mg/kg (n=8) or 100 mg/kg (n=8) plus daily subcutaneous buserelin injection (75 µg/kg) (n=8). At the end of the experiment, the rats were euthanized and their blood, tibia, and femur were harvested. Structural changes of the tibial trabecular and cortical bone were examined using X-ray micro-computed tomography. Femoral bone calcium content and biomechanical strength were also evaluated.
Results: Annatto tocotrienol at 60 and 100 mg/kg significantly prevented the deterioration of trabecular bone and cortical thickness in buserelin-treated rats (P<0.05). Both doses of annatto tocotrienol also improved femoral biomechanical strength and bone calcium content in buserelin-treated rats (P<0.05). The effects of annatto tocotrienol were comparable to calcium supplementation.
Conclusion: Annatto tocotrienol supplementation is effective in preventing degeneration of the bone induced by buserelin. Therefore, it is a potential antiosteoporotic agent for men receiving androgen deprivation therapy.
METHODS: Prior to analyzing the ability of this novel combined herbal therapy to promote aspects of bone regeneration, its cytotoxicity was determined using MC3T3-E1 cells (pre-osteoblast model). Cell proliferation was evaluated using phase-contrast microscopy and cell differentiation was estimated using alkaline phosphatase activity. The effect of the combined herbal therapy (CUR + FLL) was also assessed in terms of mineralization in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of cultured cells. Further, to explore the molecular mechanisms of bone formation, time-dependent expression of bone-regulating protein biomarkers was also evaluated.
RESULTS: Combined herbal therapy (CUR + FLL) significantly upregulated the viability, proliferation and differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells compared to the monotherapy of CUR or FLL. The magnitude of ECM mineralization (calcium deposition) was also higher in MC3T3-E1 cells treated with combined therapy. The time-dependent expression of bone-forming protein biomarkers revealed that the tendency of expression of these bone-regulating proteins was remarkably higher in cells treated with combined therapy.
CONCLUSION: The co-administration of CUR and FLL had superior promotion of elements of bone regeneration in cultured cells, thus could be a promising alternative herbal therapy for the management of bone erosive disorders such as osteoporosis.
Methods: Six osteoporosis risk assessments tools (the Simple Calculated Osteoporosis Risk Estimation [SCORE], the Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Instrument, the Age Bulk One or Never Estrogen, the body weight, the Malaysian Osteoporosis Screening Tool, and the Osteoporosis Self-Assessment Tool for Asians) were used to screen postmenopausal women who had not been previously diagnosed with osteoporosis/osteopenia. These women also underwent a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan to confirm the absence or presence of osteoporosis.
Results: A total of 164/224 participants were recruited (response rate, 73.2%), of which only 150/164 (91.5%) completed their DXA scan. Sixteen participants (10.7%) were found to have osteoporosis, whilst 65/150 (43.3%) were found to have osteopenia. Using precision-recall curves, the recall of the tools ranged from 0.50 to 1.00, whilst precision ranged from 0.04 to 0.14. The area under the curve (AUC) ranged from 0.027 to 0.161. The SCORE had the best balance between recall (1.00), precision (0.04-0.12), and AUC (0.072-0.161).
Conclusions: We found that the SCORE had the best balance between recall, precision, and AUC among the 6 screening tools that were compared among Malaysian postmenopausal women.
Methods: We used a Markov microsimulation model to compare the cost-effectiveness of zoledronic acid with alendronate in Chinese postmenopausal osteoporotic women with no fracture history at various ages of therapy initiation from health care payer perspective.
Results: The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for the zoledronic acid versus alendronate were $23,581/QALY at age 65 years, $17,367/QALY at age 70 years, $14,714/QALY at age 75 years, and $12,169/QALY at age 80 years, respectively. In deterministic sensitivity analyses, the study demonstrated that the two most impactful parameters were the annual cost of zoledronic acid and the relative risk of hip fracture with zoledronic acid. In probabilistic sensitivity analyses, the probabilities of zoledronic acid being cost-effective compared with alendronate were 70-100% at a willingness-to-pay of $29,340 per QALY.
Conclusions: Among postmenopausal osteoporotic women in China, zoledronic acid therapy is cost-effective at all ages examined from health care payer perspective, compared with weekly oral alendronate. In addition, alendronate treatment is shown to be dominant for patients at ages 65 and 70 with full persistence. This study will help clinicians and policymakers make better decisions about the relative economic value of osteoporosis treatments in China.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cell proliferation was analyzed using MTS and phase contrast microscopic assays. Osteogenic differentiation was assessed through a series of in vitro experiments including crystal violet staining, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and Van Gieson (VG) staining. Taken together, the efficiency of bone mineralization was examined by using alizarin red s (ARS) staining, Von Kossa staining, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) analysis.
RESULTS: The resulting data revealed that 5α-DHT exhibits promising potential particularly at a dose of 0.1 ng/ml, in promoting the growth of MC3T3-E1 cells compared to the control group (CN). Moreover, a significantly higher ALP activity was evident in the experimental group treated with 5α-DHT compared to the CN group at various time intervals. MC3T3-E1 cells treated with 5α-DHT also expressed a remarkably higher collagen deposition and mineralization (calcium and phosphate contents) compared to the CN group at various time intervals.
CONCLUSION: Conclusively, we suggest that 5α-DHT exhibits outstanding potential of promoting proliferation and differentiation in osteoblasts which could be the in vitro basis for the efficacy of 5α-DHT in the treatment of androgen-deficient male osteoporosis.