Does osteopenia require drug treatment??

Jonathan92280

Hi everybody,
My mom is a 56 year-old postmenopausal woman who went through the change of life at 49 due to chemotherapy treatments for early stage breast cancer in 1995. After her 7-year remission mark in September, her oncologist recommended she have her 1st DEXA scan to show where her bone health stood. The results showed hip and spinal osteopenia, with values of -2.39 and -2.2 respectively, but a 0% fracture risk. Her gynecologist insisted she start on Fosamax immediately to prevent osteoporosis. I (and mom) have some problems with this idea of "prevention" with drugs, especially since the gyn. did not say diddly about extra calcium and a weight-bearing exercise program. Also, despite the heavy marketing of this and other bisphosphonates, I have actually looked into the medical literature and have found that Fosamax does not provide any fracture benefit whatsoever in women with either normal bone density or osteopenia, despite the fact that the numbers on the DEXA scan may go up. This suggests to me that the drug is a bad choice for prevention, and there is growing concern that the drug may cause overmineralization of bone in women without fractures, eventually diminishing the quality and sturdiness of the healthy bone you already have.

As a longterm skeptic of the purported youth-enhancing and health promoting benefits of estrogen in HRT, which were disproven in July, I now will rely only on the clinical trials and Fosamax is no exception! And Fosamax-peddlers have a big profit to make by raking in as many candidates for their drug as possible, despite the fact that osteopenia is actually not a disease and supposedly requires no drug treatment at all. I am also quite sick of the notion that diet and exercise are mere alternatives to pills, as though pills are better. I thought diet and exercise were part of the optimal way of life and that pills were secondary choices when the other 2 failed (although they can't really "fail" in my mind). Has anyone here successfully treated their osteopenia and improved their numbers simply by modifying their lifestyle?