Thyroid-stimulating hormone injections can prevent osteoporosis

London, Mar 11 : In a new study with rodents, researchers have found that a weekly or fortnightly injections of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) that stimulates thyroid gland can help in preventing osteoporosis.

The team of researchers led by Mone Zaidi of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have demonstrated that one injection every other week is adequate to refurbish bone strength in the rats with low bone density.

Around 10 pct of the postmenopausal women are treated with simulated versions of the hormones, produced by the thyroid, to combat the deterioration of gland with age.

However, the therapy curbs the production of TSH, thereby reducing the TSH levels associated with bone loss in humans particularly among women aged 50 with the bone wasting disease.

These injections protect a type of bone called trabecular bone specifically found in spine and hips that are hit by osteoporosis.

"In older people, there's hardly any trabecular bone left in the hips," Nature quoted Zaidi, as saying.

"This is one reason that the elderly are particularly susceptible to hip fractures. Loss of spongy bone from the spine also gives rise to the hunched back that characterizes advanced osteoporosis," he added.

They researchers have reported their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1.

ANI