Why Black Bears Don't Take Boniva or Fosamax

From The Wall Street Journal

What Do Black Bears Know About Bone Health?

The Health Blog’s occasional encounters with bears have prompted various modes of reflection. One thought that’s never crossed our mind: Why doesn’t that bear have osteoporosis?

But that’s just what Seth Donohue thought nearly a decade ago, when he saw a bear while hiking in California’s Sierra Nevada, according to WSJ’s Lab Journal. People’s bones become weaker if they are bedridden for just a few weeks, but bears hibernate for months on end without suffering from brittle bones when they wake up.

So Donohue, a biomedical engineer at Michigan Technological University sought out other researchers who were studying bears — some in the wild, some in captivity — and began to study what kept bear bones strong. He found what he believes to be their secret: a potent form of parathyroid hormone.

He’s even convinced industry that he may be on to something. Apjohn, a company founded when Pfizer shut down some Upjohn facilities in Kalamazoo, has partnered with Michigan Tech to commercialize the finding. For that project, they’ve created a company called Aursos, whose name comes from the Latin word for bears..

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