The loudest perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms tend to get the most attention. From hot flashes to night sweats to mood swings, most women are desperate for relief from nuisances that impact their daily lives. But there’s a silent side effect of estrogen loss that might be the most dangerous—and overlooked—one of all: bone density loss, in the form of osteopenia and osteoporosis.
Now there’s a new way to combat this health risk before it develops into full-blown osteoporosis, which affects 10 million Americans (80 percent of them women!). The medical technology innovator Osteoboost has just announced the release of a new FDA-cleared, holistic solution to treat osteopenia in postmenopausal women. No drugs required—instead, you strap on a vibrating belt that looks like a fanny pack. Here’s the lowdown.
The Dangers of Bone Loss
Laura Streicher, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, explains that osteopenia is the loss of bone mass below normal healthy levels, but without a particularly increased risk for fracture. If that loss continues, it develops into osteoporosis—where the weakened bones can break after a minor fall, or even sneezing or bending.
“Osteoporosis is a serious medical condition,” says Streicher. In the first year after a fracture, an estimated 15 percent of women with osteoporosis lose their life. This can happen due to complications like an infection that turns into sepsis, or blood clots from being immobile during recovery.
“Bone health is silent for most people, until it breaks and then it screams,” says Vonda Wright, MD, an orthopedic surgeon affiliated with the Hughston Clinic in Orlando, Florida, and an internationally recognized authority on active aging and mobility.
Because there aren’t obvious symptoms, Wright urges women to consider their risk levels. If your mother is shrinking—or you smoked in your lifetime, drink a moderate amount of alcohol, have an autoimmune disease, have taken steroids long term for asthma or allergic symptoms, or have fallen and fractured a bone after the age of 20—it can be a predictor of future fracture.
What Does Menopause Have to Do With It?
Pretty much everything. When estrogen levels decline, several things happen, explains Wright. First, because estrogen is a master anti-inflammatory, we become highly inflamed. Secondly, estrogen is critical for the stimulation and regulation of bone cells called osteoblasts and osteoclasts. (Osteoblasts lay down new healthy and remodeled bone, and osteoclasts make room for the new by removing old or damaged bone.) “What happens in perimenopause and menopause is that we can’t build bone,” she says.
As such, bone loss (which naturally happens with age) can accelerate. “We know that women lose up to 20 percent of their bone mass during the five years surrounding perimenopause and early post-menopause,” says Streicher.
According to the CDC, women who are 65 or older (or who have certain other risk factors) may be recommended to get a DEXA (dual x-ray absorptiometry) scan to measure bone density. It’s also important to talk to your doctor about supplementing with calcium and vitamin D, two essential nutrients that work together to strengthen bones, and to incorporate weight-bearing movement (walking counts!) into your exercise routine. All of these practices can help prevent osteoporosis. Once diagnosed, you may be prescribed a medicine like bisphosphonates or denosumab; both slow bone loss and reduce bone breakdown.
A New Solution
Laura Yecies, chief executive officer and president of Osteoboost, has been frustrated that there’s nothing you can take to prevent bone loss in the first place. “This isn’t a rare condition. It’s me and my friends. I already have osteopenia, and I’m super active, eat tons of calcium, and am doing all the things that you’re supposed to do, and still, my bone loss is progressing.”
Shane Mangrum, MD, Osteoboost's cofounder and coinventor and a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at Polaris Spine, was seeing a lot of postmenopausal women with osteoporotic fractures. Inspired by existing research on body vibration therapies for astronauts who lose about 1 percent of their bone density per month from lack of gravity, Mangrum and Yecies set out to develop a product that was safe and effective for women here on Earth. The goal: to preserve their bones before full-blown osteoporosis struck.
The process to develop a product, and then study its effectiveness on postmenopausal women with osteopenia, took years—starting with an initial National Institutes of Health grant in 2014 to fund research. After extensive development and testing, a clinical trial published in 2023 showed that using Osteoboost multiple times a week for 12 months helped significantly slow patient bone loss compared to people who didn’t use the device. “There’s really no precedent for drug-free treatments that show statistically significant efficacy in one year—it’s unusual and a big accomplishment,” says Yecies.
Osteoboost is also really simple to use. It’s a lightweight belt that sits over your sacrum, and to activate it, you just press the power button to deliver vibrations to your hips and lower spine that trigger new bone cell growth. It’s designed to be worn for 30 minutes a day as part of your normal activity—just think of it as the cousin of that weighted vest you walk around in. In the above-mentioned study, women who used it three times a week or more saw the most improvement.
How Do I Get One?
Yecies and Mangrum both wanted it to be easy for patients to access an Osteoboost. You can have your physician order it through the pharmacy, or get a prescription from a telehealth visit. Although it’s not covered by insurance, and the out-of-pocket cost is $995, you can pay for it using an FSA or an HSA. While a one-time telehealth visit is possible, Yecies notes that they “encourage patients to work with their personal physician, because they work with them over time and can track progress.” The device also comes with an app that reminds patients to use it and provides nutritional guidance.
While women should still prioritize weight-bearing and high-impact exercise to help strengthen bones, Wright recognizes that some women are limited in their exercise abilities. “What if a patient can’t jump because her knees hurt or her bladder prolapses? I think this could be a great alternative for women who can’t do the impact on their own.” Sign us up.
