The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7258 p76
19 July 2003

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Related websites
Annals of Internal Medicine abstract (more)

Evidence does not support use of statins to prevent osteoporosis

Current evidence does not support the use of statins to prevent or treat osteoporosis, say American researchers.

They used data collected for 93,716 women taking part in the Women's Health Initiative study to compare the frequency of bone fractures in women who used statins and those who did not. The researchers found that women who used statins were just as likely to have a fracture as women who did not, even after adjusting for confounding factors such as age, weight and history of heart disease. Furthermore, there was no association between statin use and increased bone mineral density.

The researchers could not detect any protective association for the subgroups of women they studied — classified by age, body mass index, current hormone use or history of fracture. In addition, neither longer duration of statin use nor use of higher-potency statins was associated with reduced risk of fracture (Annals of Internal Medicine 2003;139:97).