Osteoporosis requires bone-specific statins.

Abstract

Remedies for primary osteoporosis are increasing in brands but not always with concomitant improvements in efficacy and safety. Clinical studies suggest that nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates alone display sufficient practical effectiveness to survive as effective therapy. However, their less effectiveness in highly osteopenic patients due to their lack of genuine bone anabolic effect waits improvements. Pinpointing statins as the inducer of BMP-2 provoked a rush of clinical and laboratory studies to identify bone anabolic properties. Clinical studies, even if only through observational, suggest that under conventional dosing conditions for hyperlipemia, the liver-targeted statins now in use display insufficient bone anabolic effect, although laboratory studies seem to be clarifying the mechanisms underlying intrinsic bone anabolic properties. While incomplete, these studies indicate the possibility that, if bioavailability to bone could be improved by simply changing dosing methods and/or deliberate derivatization, the genuine anabolic properties of statins on bone could be extracted and put into therapeutic use.