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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Newer drugs used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), otherwise known as an enlarged prostate, dont appear to raise the risk for a hip fracture.
Thats the key finding from researchers who compared outcomes from about 7,000 men who had suffered a hip fracture with those experienced by about 7,000 who had not. Results showed men who had taken a 5-beta reductase inhibitor -- a class of drugs that includes the medications finasteride and dutasteride -- were no more likely to fracture their hip than men who had not taken these drugs.
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The study did raise some concerns regarding an older class of medications for BPH, however. The use of beta-blockers was slightly higher in men who had a hip fracture than in men who didnt, 32 percent versus 30 percent.
The researchers decided to study hip fracture incidence in men using these drugs because the medications work by affecting hormones that play a role in bone health.
These data suggest that 5-beta reductase inhibitors do not confer a negative risk for bone health and in fact may lower the risk of hip fracture, write the Kaiser Permanente Southern California researchers. While presumably this lower risk is related to hormonal mechanisms, further understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon may lead to new insights that can be exploited for preventive measures.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, published online October 7, 2008
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