Thaindian News

Washington, April 8 (IANS) For osteoporosis patients who are unable to exercise, help may be on the way. Scientists have discovered how new therapies can trick bones into thinking they are getting a workout.
Osteoporosis is a disease that leads to an increased risk of fracture of the bone.

Bone cells use microscopic hair-like projections, called cilia, to turn on bone-forming genes in response to mechanical loads.

The research provides insight into the identification of the signalling mechanisms used by primary cilia to regulate the capacity of bone cells to sense fluid flow.

This crucial information could lead to the development of new drugs that cause the same benefits to the skeleton as exercise, which would be beneficial to patients with osteoporosis.

“We believe that this study takes the field an important step forward in answering a 200-year-old question, How does bone sense mechanical loads?” said Christopher R. Jacobs, study co-author from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.

“Ultimately, we hope that the mechanisms identified in this study can be exploited to develop novel treatments for bone loss and perhaps a large number of other diseases involving the remarkably versatile primary cilia,” added Jacobs.

The study is one of the first to suggest that primary cilia play an important role in diseases such as osteoporosis, says a Stanford release.

“It’s easy for doctors to tell osteoporosis patients that they need to get a good workout a few days each week, but the reality is that many patients are too frail to do so,” said Jacobs.

“This ground-breaking study details the exact biochemical signals used by bone cells to turn the daily workout into new bone,” said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal that published the study.

“This research pinpoints new targets for drugs that will allow physicians to break this cycle of frailty, bone loss, and incapacity, so that patients can live longer, healthier, and more active lives,” said Weissmann.