Strontium Citrate

[bonewarrior]

Hi there,

I am considering taking strontium citrate because many of you have written that it helped with Osteoporosis. I am not taking any medication, I am only taking supplements and working out to combat my diagnosis from two years ago. I would like to add strontium to my supplements. What are your experiences? The recommended dosage would be 750 mg per day.

Any thoughts on strontium citrate or recommended dosage? I would love to hear from people who have had positive results, but also from those who did not. Side effects? Concerns?

Thanks!

[LilEgg]

look up combs report. I believe it was originally based out of Australia. I am following that and the dosage is 680. According to them.… I have read here on this site and other support groups on Facebook that it seems to help along with a handful of dried prunes and collagen peptides daily… I’ve been on medicine had many side effects and no longer want to take anything. I only started a couple of months, so I’m hoping for the best, but I did read as I said before people have some improvement with it along with daily exercise

[HealthELiving]

bonewarrior,

I read the COMBS study but have noted that most research has focused on Strotnium Ranelate and not Citrate . They are not the same and have deep reservations on ingesting an element unknown and mostly untested. In the early 1920s young women worked at Radium plants painting clock dials and suffered disintegrating jaws, pain and hemmorages. Turned out they were licking the brushes to get a finer point to paint the dial with this similar radioactive element. I have no doubt that strontium (citrate) accumulates in the bones and may make bones denser - but is it safe? It is referred to as a 'soft metal' like lead. The Ranelate version is used in Australia/Europe but not approved/available in the U.S., thus the Citrate version is sold.

Article notes that "it may be safer to avoid using it (the citrate version). Further studies are needed to delineate the effect of SrC on bone health and safety." -symbiosisonlinepublishing.c...

I'm with you - I'd love to hear from those who have taken SrC for more than a year (under physician care if possible) and their experiences. We are all searching for the non-drug care of osteoporosis.

[Pvane in reply to HealthELiving]

Hello,

What about an exercise program with specific modifications for individuals with osteoporosis? I have been doing that for a year now and feel so much more energetic.

AIM Fitness in Ottawa Canada has great fitness programs online! Thanks. Pam

[yogalibrarian]

I've posted much of this before....

1. Because of the underlying chemistry (which I won't explain in detail), strontium can substitute for calcium in the bone matrix. It does not build structure; it just makes it appear heavier/denser. Without other kinds of tests there is no way to determine how it might improve bone quality.

2. That will invalidate DXA results because they are based on calcium not strontium. And no there is no simple conversion formula that can be applied to the DXA results. The half-life of strontium in the bones is measured in years. Like many other drugs the effect is dose and duration dependent.

3. Because Sr citrate is classed as a supplement, there is much less testing and reporting required -- and therefore less is actually known about safety or efficacy. Supplements are manufactured by small pharma -- but small pharma is still pharma.

4. The high-quality research that has been done was on strontium ranelate (in Europe) not strontium citrate. Strontium ranelate was off the market for several years, for a combination of safety and financial reasons. (2014--The European Medicines Agency's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) has recommended that Protelos/Osseor should no longer be used to treat osteoporosis.) It was back on the market in the UK with "black box" warnings. (The Royal Osteoporosis Society website says that from October 2023, it will be temporarily off the market. No reason given.)

5. A note from the Royal Osteoporosis Society handout on strontium ranelate. "Is there a natural alternative to medication? People often want to know if they can improve their bone strength without taking a drug treatment. The lifestyle changes listed on page 6 [of the handout] are all important for your bones. But if you have a high risk of broken bones, there isn’t good evidence that any non-drug approaches will improve your bone strength enough to reduce the chance of breaking a bone. "

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About the COMB Study (Genuis SJ, Bouchard TP. Combination of Micronutrients for Bone (COMB) Study: bone density after micronutrient intervention. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:354151. doi: 10.1155/2012/354151. Epub 2012 Jan 15. PMID: 22291722; PMCID: PMC3265100.)

I reread this recently -- and it's odd in a number of ways....

1. It was published in 2012 and has not been followed up. The author did do a bit of earlier work on the topic. A number of citations go back to the 1990s and some to the 1970s.

2. One of his pet "hobby horses" is the role of nutrition (particularly micronutrients) in disease. I don't dispute a nutrition/disease connection or that the current US and Canadian diet is flawed. One of his other topics is the assault on a physician's freedom of conscience.

3. "The population of patients for the study came from an environmental medicine clinic in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada." The total population at the end of the study was 77. (The study itself acknowledges that it is a very small study. "Exclusion criteria included patients with recognized bone compromising medical conditions or those on medications known to potentially affect bone health.")

4. Most participants were post-menopausal women (58/81%). There were a few men (3). No breakdown by age. About 30% of participants had normal or near normal BMD not osteoporosis or osteopenia.

5. "Limitations of this study include the small sample size and the lack of a blinded placebo-controlled group. Furthermore, given the multiple-intervention nature of the combination micronutrient regimen, it is difficult to pinpoint which nutrients or nutrient groups were ultimately responsible for the improved BMD in each case. As well, the one-year followup limits the ability to determine the long-term effects of this regimen on BMD measurements and sustained prevention of fragility fractures.

6. Quote from study itself-- "There is also marked selection bias in this study group which might potentially lead to an underestimate of the full potential of these interventions in the general population."

7. There was poor adherence. Patients appear to have paid for the supplements themselves -- $2.26 (CDN) per day (in 2011 $).

8. The combination protocol /day was: DHA from fish oil (250 mg); D3 (2000 IU); K2 (100mcg); strontium citrate (680 mg); magnesium (25 mg); calcium from dietary sources such as Brussels sprouts and broccoli (not winners in the Ca category); AND DAILY IMPACT EXERCISING encouraged, The last 2 could certainly confound the study.

9. The study lasted a year and one of their measures of success was the absence of fractures. BUT although they mentioned falls they do not appear to have tracked them (And falls lead to most frx except spine frx.)

10. They do mention BMD testing (and the sites suggest that it was not heel scanning but it's not clear whether it was DXA or something else.) No mention of any testing of bone turnover markers or testing of blood levels for nutrients such as D.

11. Lots of really old research on strontium; much of it from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

12. And a rather bizarre tangent about why the Human Genome Project (the realization that each human is biochemically unique) makes the model of the efficacy of traditional clinical trials debatable.

13. There was no follow-up research on this protocol, The article has been cited, but related to a dizzying array of topics including studies on mixed-breed cattle.

[HealthELiving in reply to yogalibrarian]

Thank you for posting this information - I hadn't seen it before and it is quite a good analysis and comprehensive evaluation on the topic.

[yogalibrarian in reply to HealthELiving]

Often authors of good research papers will point out some of the shortcomings of their research.