Do pain relievers impede bone drug's efficacy?

New research published in theJournal of Bone and Mineral Researchsuggests that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that are taken to reduce pain may block the beneficial effects of bone-protective drugs called bisphosphonates.

In the study of 5,212 community-dwellingwomenaged 75 years and older, the use of NSAIDs did not seem to have a direct impact on individuals' bone fracture risk, but the medications appeared to negate the bone-protective effects of the oral bisphosphonate, clodronate, on preventing osteoporotic fractures.

"We need to exercise some caution in extrapolating these data to more widely used bisphosphonates inosteoporosis, but given that concomitant usage of NSAIDs and bisphosphonates is relatively common, this could have major clinical consequences and result in a failure to reduce fracture risk as much as we had hoped," said senior author Eugene McCloskey, MD, of Northern General Hospital, in the UK.