Story at a Glance
•A gradual weakening of the bones which predisposes one to fractures is one of the most common and significant consequences of aging. Presently, to address it, we wisely try to head off bone loss in our younger years and routinely scan the density of aging bones so that a large volume of patients can be sold drugs to increase bone density.
•This approach is misguided because the data from those scans often does not correlate to the actual strength of the bones and because simply increasing bone density often creates brittle bones that fracture under stress. Additionally, the most commonly used drugs to address bone density are notorious for their side effects.
•Remarkably, medicine’s own data now shows that two-thirds of fractures happen to people who do not have osteoporosis, which means the number we have built this entire industry around is not the number that actually breaks bones.
•Anytime a large drug market exists (e.g., presently osteoporosis affects around 20% of women over 50), the medical industry will dismiss any approach to the condition which does not result in it being able to sell large amounts of lucrative medical services.
•Because of this, there is relatively little knowledge of the actual causes of osteoporosis or the most effective ways to restore the strength of the bones. The causes and treatments of osteoporosis, along with the specific things we use to restore the resilience (rather than merely the density) of bone, will be the focus of this article.
The years I have spent studying the medical industry have made me appreciate how often economic principles can allow one to understand its complex and contradictory behavior. For example, I believe many of the inconsistencies in medical ethics (e.g., “mothers have an absolute right to abort their children” and “mothers cannot refuse to vaccinate their children because it endangers their child’s life”) can be explained by simply acknowledging that whatever makes money is deemed “ethical.”
Hellbound and Down 