It’s almost comical how mainstream medicine has cordoned human disease into specialties and yet the human body metaphorically thumbs its nose at the idea that systems act in isolation. Every system effects every other system.
We see this time and time again. Heart disease patients who also have colorectal cancer. Patients with stomach complaints that also have osteoporosis. My favorite is diabetes and cardiovascular disease. From my viewpoint, there is no difference between heart disease and diabetes. If this sounds strange, consider that 70% of diabetics die of cardiovascular complications, and almost every single cardiovascular patient has signs that they are either diabetic are heading towards diabetes. The lifestyle changes to prevent diabetes are the same ones that will protect the heart.
Which then brings us to this particular study. Researchers looked at the rate of osteoporotic fractures in patients who were being treated for heart failure and found an increased risk (about 33% after all other risk factors for fractures were accounted for).
Just pointing out the association is important and will hopefully wake up clinicians who do not view treatment of a patient from a whole body perspective. I have never had a patient diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis who was given any information beyond the drugs available and take some more calcium. Rarely is vitamin D even touched on, let alone other lifestyle related factors that contribute to bone destruction.
The researchers however, in their conclusion, demonstrate that they just don’t get it. The conclusion is that this means that patients with heart failure should be screened more often for osteoporosis and given more drugs.
UGH!!
These conditions are on the same trajectory! They are not separate disease entities that need to be treated independently by another litany of drugs. We need to understand that poor lifestyle changes lead to EVERY disease and that fixing the lifestyle is key, NOT medicating the symptoms! (Ok..I feel much better now…)