Yikes! Why doesn’t this make headline news?
Canada has socialized medicine, so they have great records. Researchers identified women 50 years or older who had osteoporosis, and what prescription medications they had used in the years prior.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, atypical antipsychotics, and benzodiazepines were associated with higher risk of osteoporosis. Tricyclic antidepressants were associated with lower odds of osteoporosis. These drug effects were independent of mental illness diagnoses, including depression and schizophrenia.
The authors from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, concluded that some psychotropic medications are associated with an increased risk of bone loss, whereas tricyclic antidepressants may be protective against osteoporosis, and these effects are independent of mental illness diagnoses.
How many women are on sleep meds, SSRIs, and also bone meds? Is one hand aware of what the other is doing? I mentioned these studies to an endocrinologist I know, a smart well-intentioned one, and got that deer in the headlight look. He hadn’t heard of these studies.
Well now you have! (Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 2011)