Osteoporosis Drugs Double Risk of Throat Cancer

by Heidi Stevenson

3 September 2010

Bisphosphonates, the osteoporosis drugs that cause the disease they're supposed to prevent, also double the rate of esophageal cancer. One would have thought that a drug that causes the disease it's supposed to prevent would be enough to stop its routine use, but in the twisted thinking of modern medicine, that doesn't seem to be enough. The new study, reported in the British Medical Journal, documents yet another harm of bisphosphonates.

Will doctors ever stop routinely prescribing these drugs for the nonexistent disease they've dubbed osteopenia? A few years ago, the term was coined for women deemed to be at "risk" of osteoporosis—based primarily on their normal change of bone mass with age—so they can be drawn into control by the medical cartel and pressed into taking a Big Pharma poison.

Now, many of those women are finding themselves even deeper into the system, being pressed into even worse treatments and drug poisons for throat cancer.

That isn't counting the women who find that their jawbones have crumbled, or who develop ulcers or potentially fatal skin death, along with all modern medicine's treatments and drugs for those conditions. Nor is it counting the well-known risk of esophageal irritation, including ulcers and perforation. Of course, this is probably induced by another well-known risk, gastritis, which leads to yet another, gastroesophageal reflux.

And, we mustn't forget that other significant adverse effect of the drugs used to prevent osteoporosis: osteoporosis, the disease they're supposedly preventing.

These Adverse Effects Were Predictable

None of this should ever have been a surprise. The primary element of bisphosphonates is phosphorus. It has long been known to cause a range of debilitating conditions, most notably Fossy jaw, which many workers in early match factories suffered. It's a debilitating and disfiguring condition that results from necrosis—death—of the jawbone.

Modern medicine reasoned that, since bones contain some phosphorus, then giving it to people in the form of bisphosphonates would prevent bone loss. There was no consideration of the known risks of excess phosphorus, nor was there any consideration that a certain amount of bone loss is normal as we age. As a result, women in particular were targeted as "suffering" from the nonexistent disease, osteopenia, which has been defined as bone loss—but women of age 50 are compared with women of age 20. Naturally, a huge percentage of older women were defined as needing bisphosphonates simply because they were normal 50 year olds.

Even though studies have demonstrated that bisphosphonates cause the condition they're supposed to prevent, osteoporosis, doctors continue to prescribe them.

Doctors Continue to Prescribe Poison

Now that a study has documented that they cause esophageal cancer, don't expect to see any changes in prescription rates. The study authors themselves discount the risk of esophageal cancer. The lead author, Dr. Jane Green, stated:

Oesophageal cancer is uncommon. The increased risks we found were in people who used oral bisphosphonates for about five years, and even if our results are confirmed, few people taking bisphosphonates are likely to develop oesophageal cancer as a result of taking these drugs.

Our findings are part of a wider picture. Bisphosphonates are being increasingly prescribed to prevent fractures, and what is lacking is reliable information on the benefits and risks of their use in the long-term.

Dr. Green did not, though, discuss the already-known picture of bisphosphonates, allowing the impression that the risk is low to be maintained, and failing to adequately discuss its importance in context with the other known risks and relative lack of efficacy. She also did not point out that esophageal cancer most often leads to a rapid and difficult death.

Even more significant is the fact that she didn't point out that esophageal cancer is yet another risk to add to all the other previously-recognized risks. It does not stand by itself as the only one. Yet, the way she spoke of it, you would think that it's the only real problem with bisphosphonates.

A representative of the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated that the findings shouldn't stop patients from taking bisphosphonates, but that they should report symptoms of esophageal problems to their doctors. In other words, don't think for yourself. Put all your trust in your doctor.

Dr. Laura Bell of Cancer Research UK, stated:

Anyone who is taking these drugs and is worried about their risk of cancer should talk to their doctor.

In other words, don't think for yourself, just trust your doctor.

The National Osteoporosis Society said:

It is a case of balancing the reduced risk of fractures against the side effects of treatment.

When you consider the fact that there are 230,000 osteoporotic fractures every year in the UK and 1,150 hip-fracture-related deaths every month, the case for treatment is strong.

Don't consider whether bisphosphonates might actually cause fractures...just trust trust that we'll tell you if you should stop taking them.

These statements are all disingenuous and disempowering. They imply that people do not have the intelligence to make their own decisions. It leads one to question who the governmental agencies and major charities really support. Their first concern doesn't appear to be the patients; rather, it looks like they're more interested in prolonging Big Pharma's bisphosphonate profits by empowering doctors and demeaning patients.

Bisphosphonates cause osteoporosis. Many cases of drug-induced osteoporosis are silent. A woman will suddenly find that her femur (thigh bone) suddenly snaps without warning. Dentists were among the first to find problems with people taking bisphosphonates. Many refuse to do extensive work on the teeth of people taking them, because they've discovered that their jawbones no longer anchor their teeth adequately, the direct result of osteoporosis of the jaw and necrosis of the jawbone.

These direct effects of bisphosphonates are evidence that they cause the very condition they're supposed to be preventing. Yet, in the face of this, doctors have continued to prescribe them to women who suffer from nothing other than being normal for their age.

Now that worse problems are surfacing—from severe gastric damage to skin necrosis to throat cancer—the attitude generally is to hide the overall effects of bisphosphonates, and treat each of its harms as if they were minor effects with no relationship to each other, as if each exists in a vacuum.

Bisphosphonates need to be recognized as very dangerous chemicals, ones that should be used only with a very careful risk-benefit analysis for each person who is a potential candidate for their use.

How You Can Prevent Osteoporosis

There is no quick fix. It takes many years to develop osteoporosis, and it takes a commitment to good health to prevent it. First, be sure to get good exercise, especially assuring that it's weight-bearing. Then, be sure to eat a good diet, eliminating all, or at least most, processed foods. Do not drink pasteurized milk as a means of getting adequate calcium. In fact, if you're eating a good diet with plenty of veggies, you won't need more calcium. The vitamin you most likely do need to assure good bone and general health is Vitamin D. If you can get it from the sun, that's best, but if not, be sure to take a good supplement and get yourself tested to assure that you have enough D in your system.

The most important thing to understand is that health does not come from ingesting chemicals. Bones are part of the constant balancing of metabolic processes in your body. While it's true that your bones contain more calcium than anything else, taking calcium supplements alone is unlikely to benefit your bones. Likewise, taking extra phosphorus in the form of bisphosphonates is unlikely to bring about strong bones.

You cannot target a single structure in your body to bring about health. It's only by recognizing its part in a synergistic whole that you can hope to find health. Therefore, it's only by treating bones as a functional part of your entire body that you can expect to achieve healthy bones. It's only by achieving the best possible overall health that your bones can be healthy.

Bisphosphonates cannot make your bones healthy. These chemicals exist primarily for one purpose: to make Big Pharma stockholders rich. You can put your money, time, and effort into enriching them—or you can enrich your own life and body with good food, good friends, and good activity.

What do you think? Click here to comment!