NASA Spinoff: Boosting Bone Health featuring Osteoboost Health
Recovering from a broken bone can be a long, painful experience — even life-threatening for the elderly.
The risk of a fracture when thousands of miles away from medical care is one reason NASA studies bone health in astronauts. Weightlessness in space and even low gravity on the Moon or Mars can weaken human bones over time. NASA-funded research into options for combating that bone loss has included a study attempting to understand whether vibrations might trigger bone cells to create new tissue. The answer was yes for the test animals, and that effort also determined the ideal vibration intensity and frequency for humans. Now a new technology is using that information to help prevent the most common fractures in hips and the lower spine for Earth-bound patients.
Approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a Class II prescription medical device for patients with osteopenia, Osteoboost was created to help prevent bone loss. Osteopenia is loss of bone density that occurs prior to osteoporosis, and both conditions significantly increase the risk of fractures, according to Laura Yecies, CEO of Osteoboost Health Inc.
