Osteoporosis is an age-related condition and it makes bones frailer and more prone to fractures. This condition is more common among women but it affects men too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), conveys that osteoporosis of the femur neck or lumbar spine, which is the most widespread forms of osteoporosis affects 24.5% of women and 5.1% of men who are 65 years of age or over in the United States.

After the initial fracture related to osteoporosis, doctors will most often prescribe drugs to support bone health. Nitrogen bisphosphonates and etidronate, a nonnitrogen bisphosphonate are some of the osteoporosis drugs that doctors commonly prescribe.

New investigations from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Darlinghurst, Australia, has revealed that use of some of these drugs that result in lower bone loss rates are also corelated with a significantly lower mortality risk.

However, according to the study authors, many people who have been prescribed osteoporosis drugs after an initial fragility fracture do not follow that prescription.

Study co-author Prof. Jacqueline Center notes that it’s a common misconception that osteoporosis affects only women, and many people choose to not take the recommended treatments.

She further warns that osteoporosis fractures are not benign. Osteoporosis medication not only decreases the risk of further fractures, but it appears that this same medication also decreases mortality rates over the subsequent 15 years.

Prof. Center and colleagues include these findings in two study papers, one that they published in Osteoporosis International and one featuring in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.