Alendronate, a common osteoporosis medication, may help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, according to new data presented virtually at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) 2021 Annual Meeting.
Bone fractures are more common among patients with diabetes, the researchers noted, and osteoporosis has been found to affect glucose regulation in animals. How far does this relationship between blood sugar and bone strength go?
To learn more, the group identified more than 163,000 patients with type 2 diabetes and more than 490,000 patients without diabetes. All patients were treated in Denmark from 2008 to 2018, and the average patient age was 67 years old.
Overall, even after adjusting for certain factors such as obesity and alcohol use, patients with a history of taking alendronate were 34% less likely to receive a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
Taking the medication for at least eight years, the authors wrote, could potentially reduce a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 53%.
“Type 2 diabetes is a serious lifelong condition that can lead to other serious health issues such as stroke, heart disease, blindness and limb amputation and anything that prevents, or even delays it, will also reduce a person’s risk of all these other conditions,” lead author Rikke Viggers, a PhD student at Aalborg University Hospital in Denmark, said in a prepared statement. “Excitingly, our research suggests that alendronate, an inexpensive medicine widely used to treat osteoporosis, may also protect against type 2 diabetes. We believe that doctors should consider this when prescribing osteoporosis drugs to those with pre-diabetes or at high risk of type 2 diabetes.”
More information about EASD 2021 is available here.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.