Osteoarthritis can be prevented by Parathyroid hormone

arathyroid hormone (PTH), which is known as teriparatide in drug form, can prove to be an effective option for inhibiting cartilage loss due to osteoarthritis following joint injury. The hormone was also found to be effective for regenerating a part of cartilage lost due to osteoarthritis.

This finding was revealed by an early study presented September 12 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver.

The presently recommended drugs such as steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (e.g. Advil, Aleve) may address pain but fail to address loss of cartilage because of osteoarthritis, which is believed to affect more than 50 million Americans by 2020.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“Right now physicians have no way to bring back cartilage in patients who have lost it to osteoarthritis,” said Randy Rosier, M.D., Ph.D., professor within the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Our current results, at least in mice, show that we can inhibit cartilage degeneration and improve the volume of cartilage in diseased joints. It’s remarkable enough that this compound delays the loss of cartilage, but these results show it also may be able to restore, at least to some extent, cartilage in already degraded joint surfaces.”

Researchers examined the impact of a daily dose of Forteo®/teriparatide, manufactured by Eli Lilly, and a generic version of teriparatide made by Sigma on the progress of OA following injury in study mice.

Experiments established a five-fold increase in PTH type 1 receptor expression in the articular cartilage of mice with injury-related osteoarthritis when compared to healthy cartilage. Injury triggers genetic mechanisms in an attempt to begin repairs, a repair response that may be responsible for the increase in PTH receptor in the joint. This in turn makes damaged cartilage particularly responsive to PTH.

This study was co-led by Erik Sampson, Todd O’Brien, Di Chen, Susan Bukata, J. Edward Puzas, Regis O’Keefe and Michael Zuscik within the Department of Orthopaedics and by Hani Awad in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Tags: osteoarthritis, Steroids, teriparatide

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