Fosamax (alendronate sodium) is a drug that affects bone metabolism. It is used in treating osteoporosis and Paget's disease, and is being studied in the treatment of hypercalcemia (abnormally high levels of calcium in the blood) and in treating and reducing the risk of bone pain caused by cancer. Alendronate sodium belongs to the family of drugs called bisphosphonates.
Complementary medicines include products containing herbs, vitamins, minerals, nutritional supplements, homoeopathic medicines, certain aromatherapy products and traditional Chinese medicines. For this reason they are also called herbal, natural or alternative medicines.
Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones usually affecting elderly women and causes the bones to become brittle and easily breakable. Since last two years some alarming reports of women on drugs for therapy of this disease have come to notice. These reports show that these drugs intended for therapy may result in rare and serious fractures of their thigh bones where the bones break clean or may splinter. Often these fractures were not associated with any fall or impact. Moreover some of the sufferers are middle aged women in their 50’s who do not have full blown osteoporosis, a condition known as pre-osteoporosis or osteopenia.
Merck said today that U.S. District Court Judge John F. Keenan granted summary judgment in Merck's favor in Flemings v. Merck. Flemings is the second of three cases involving FOSAMAX (alendronate sodium) designated by the federal MDL court as a bellwether trial case.
It has been revealed that the academic publisher Elsevier has admitted its Australian office produced six fake medical journals between 2000 and 2005.
Researchers at the University Of Southern California, School Of Dentistry release results of clinical data that links oral bisphosphonates to increased jaw necrosis
Today, more than ever, consumers can opt for generic equivalents of brand-name medications at substantial cost savings.
Osteoporosis is a growing concern among breast cancer survivors and their doctors, because certain cancer drugs can cause bone loss.
Fitch Ratings has affirmed Merck & Co.'s (Merck) ratings, and revised the Rating Outlook to Negative from Stable.
Patients who start and eventually stop regimens of a common class of osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates may be unable to benefit from parathyroid hormone (PTH), which can rebuild bone mass lost due to advanced stage osteoporosis. PTH has been proven to increase the volume and strength of the honeycomb-like bone infrastructure, the inner mesh that begins to diminish in old age.
Colonoscopy is especially important for women, because they're more likely to have polyps or lesions deeper in the colon. Only colonoscopy examines the entire length of the colon. Emptying the contents of the colon - a step called bowel prep - is essential to a successful colonoscopy. But there's some reason to believe that bowel prep for a colonoscopy is harder for women than for men, reports the November 2008 issue of Harvard Women's Health Watch.
There is new evidence linking risk for one kind of fracture with long-term use of bisphosphonates -- drugs like Fosamax that are prescribed to treat osteoporosis in older persons by increasing bone density in order to prevent fractures.
Women who have used Fosamax are nearly twice as likely to develop the most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation) than are those who have never used it, according to research from Group Health and the University of Washington published in the April 28 Archives of Internal Medicine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the first generic versions of Fosamax (alendronate sodium tablets), used to treat osteoporosis, a condition that causes thinning and weakening of a person's bones.
A University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute study has found that a popular class of osteoporosis drugs nearly triples the risk of developing bone necrosis, a condition that can lead to disfigurement and incapacitating pain.
Athanasios Zavras began receiving messages from distraught patients in 2005 after case reports linked oral osteoporosis meds to bone death in the jaw.
Many medications reduce the risk of bone fractures in people with osteoporosis, but the most commonly used drugs - bisphosphonates - have not been proven more effective than alternatives, according to a new report funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The osteoporosis drug Forteo works better than Fosamax to strengthen bones in arthritis patients with prednisone-induced osteoporosis, according to a new study from a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB.)
A once a year injection of an osteoporosis drug has been found to reduce the number of new hip fractures for older people and also saves lives.
A once-a-year treatment for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis has been given approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States.
A class of drugs called bisphosphonates has become the new mainstay treatment for postmenopausal women diagnosed with osteoporosis in the post-hormone-replacement era.