Patients with osteoporosis, or brittle bone disease, are often given drugs to strength their bones and slow down the thinning.
These drugs can also be given to cancer patients who are suffering with bone loss symptoms such as those with multiple myeloma, where cells in the bone marrow destroy bone leaving it weakened.
The largest and most comprehensive study yet, conducted by British researchers, has now found that one of the drugs, called zoledronic acid, improves survival in those cancer patients as well as preventing bone loss.
The findings were published in The Lancet medical journal and presented at the American Society of Hematology meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Professor Gareth Morgan, of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, and Professors Walter Gregory and Anthony Child, of Clinical Trials Research Unit at University of Leeds compared zoledronic acid against a similar drug, clodronic acid in a group of almost 2,000 patients.
Osteoporosis
It was found that zoledronic acid reduced mortality by 16 per cent and extended overall survival by 5·5 months from 44.5 months to 50 months when compared with clodronic acid.
The authors wrote in The Lancet: “The improvement in overall survival with zoledronic acid remained significant after adjustment for the reduction in risk of skeletal-related events. These data add to growing clinical evidence supporting anticancer benefits with zoledronic acid in patients with newly diagnosed cancers.
“Although we have not definitively identified the underlying mechanism of action, the early improvement in overall survival with zoledronic acid compared with clodronic acid supports early use of zoledronic acid in multiple myeloma.”
In an accompanying comment article, Dr Vincent Rajkumar, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said other less expensive drugs are available which have fewer side effects than zoledronic acid.
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Patients with brittle bone disease are more likely to suffer heart disease as well, a study has found.
Scientists say that both conditions have the same biological cause, meaning contracting one makes an individual more susceptible to the other.
The team from the University of Tromso in Norway studied 6,000 patients and found that women who suffered heart problems had much lower bone density than other women of the same age.
This led them to link osteoporosis, the disease that weakens bones, with a atherosclerosis, the hardening of arteries that can lead to heart disease and even strokes.
The link could be caused by a hormone, OPG, which is found in high levels in post-menopausal women.
Lead researcher Professor Jane Jorgensen said: ‘We have found that bone loss is linked to a high level of OPG in post-menopausal women.
‘In addition, we see that a high level of OPG also predicts the development of atherosclerosis in women.
‘We hope that our findings will help to develop methods of preventing these serious diseases.’
Osteoporosis affects around three million people in the UK and previous research has suggested that two cups of tomato juice a day can help prevent the disease.
Heart disease kills 200,000 suffers in the UK each year and costs the NHS £15billion over the same period.