UNMC is recruiting women in the Omaha and Lincoln areas to participate in a study looking for better ways to prevent osteoporosis — a disease of decreased bone strength and density that causes bones to break and sometimes even result in death.
Researchers will recruit 300 women who speak English in the Omaha and Lincoln areas and 60 Spanish-speaking women in Omaha. Women eligible for the 12-month study must be within five years after menopause.
A translator will always be on hand throughout the study for Spanish-speaking women who also will receive Spanish language materials.
For a Spanish-language version of this story, click here.
The study is part of a $3.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to test interventions for preventing further bone loss and osteoporosis in post-menopausal women with early bone loss. Prevention treatments are important since during the first five years after beginning menopause women lose 2 percent of their bone mineral density each year.
Nancy Waltman, Ph.D., professor in the UNMC College of Nursing, and Laura Bilek, Ph.D., associate professor in the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions, are principal investigators of the grant. UNMC also collaborates with Creighton University Medical Center on the study.
If women are eligible for the study and want to participate, they would be randomly assigned to one of three parts of the study:
- take calcium and vitamin D supplements every day;
- take bone-building medication (Risedronate) plus calcium and vitamin D supplements; or
- take calcium and vitamin D supplements and strengthen bones in a tailored exercise program three times a week at various designated facilities.
Dr. Waltman said after menopause, many women develop weak, fragile bones, and they don’t realize they have bone loss. The concern is that with weak bones they are more likely to break bones.
All study treatments are provided at no cost and travel expense compensation is provided. Women who want to be screened to see if they qualify for the study will receive blood draws and an X-ray of the hip and spine to determine if they have early bone loss. Both will be at no cost.
For more information about the study, call 402-552-6819 or email hops@unmc.edu.
The NIH study is titled, “Bone-loading Exercises versus Risedronate on Bone Health in Post-Menopausal Women.”