Do Special Weight-Lifting Machines Work for Osteoporosis?

If you’re female and 50 or older, you have a 50/50 chance of breaking a bone due to osteoporosis or osteopenia. You might be intrigued by claims that you can increase your bone strength by using special weight-lifting machines in short bursts of time. There’s one snag: Doctors don’t know yet if these programs work.

What Are Bone-Building Businesses?

Bone-building businesses generally claim that you can increase your bone density with relative ease. For example, you might lift heavy weights, supervised, using specialized machines. The whole process takes as little as a quick 10 minutes once a week.

The businesses use special terms to describe their processes, such as:

• Osteogenic loading, or bone loading, which can refer to lifting or holding still with weights that are way heavier than your bodyweight in order to strengthen your frame. It might involve flexing muscles without moving joints.
• Osteoblasts, referring to a certain 4% to 6% of your bone-forming cells that keep your bone shape and strength.
• Bio-hacking, a medical-sounding term that means changing your habits to improve your body. In the case of bone health, it might include non-evidence-based actions such as eating differently — for instance, switching from three meals a day to intermittent fasting; lifting weights in a different way than in the past; taking strontium supplements; and sitting in infrared saunas.

The goal is to make your bones less likely to break, and some businesses say your bone density numbers can shoot up significantly within a year.

Some personal trainers, physical therapists and chiropractors market themselves as providing similar programs, one-on-one.

Does It Work?

Bone density is important, since dense bones are less likely to fracture than weaker ones; a common test called DEXA scan measures this. These days bone specialists look at a second factor just as closely. It’s called a trabecular bone score, and it assesses the micro-architecture of your bones to help determine how likely you are to actually break a bone if you fall or bang a limb. The two numbers together paint a clearer picture of your fracture risk than either by itself.

It might seem tempting to slash your chances of a fracture by participating in a program for 10 minutes a week.

However, no scientifically acceptable proof exists proving that these efforts work — or don’t work. A detailed review of existing research shows that the studies done so far are too small, funded by entities with a conflict of interest, don’t take the addition of bone-building meds into account or are lacking in other crucial ways. None has been a large-scale randomized controlled trial, which is the scientific gold standard. Those trials follow several people over a long period of time and include control groups — the type of studies that provide the trustworthy information doctors rely on.

How To Keep Your Bones Strong

If you have the time, money and inclination, you can add a bone-building program membership to your bone-health regime. You probably won’t hurt yourself, and your bone density might rise.

But you might not want to rely on a commercial program instead of tried-and-true bone-health initiatives. If you have osteoporosis or osteopenia, or even if you’re at-risk for either one, incorporate proven actions into your life, including:

• Weight-bearing exercise, such as walking, dancing, or climbing stairs five days a week.
• Resistance training, using machines, free weights or lightweight rubber resistance bands.
• Balance and agility training, so you’re less likely to fall. You can find simple exercises online, or participate in online or in-person classes such as yoga or tai chi.
• Calcium throughout the day from food and supplements, if needed (preferably calcium citrate).
• Vitamin D supplements if needed to maintain normal levels.
• Prescription medications that treat osteoporosis and reduce the risk of fractures.
• Hormone therapy involving estrogen.

If you want to add a commercial bone-building program on top of that, go for it. But do not let it take away from the things we know can help unless scientific proof is released.

This content is not AI generated.