A rare but awful condition known as jaw necrosis, in which bone starts to die and which can lead to the loss of the jaw, has been linked with the osteoporosis drugs known as bisphosphonates. These drugs are widely prescribed to women with low bone density scores, often beginning at midlife, and are also used intravenously on some cancer patients. The cancer patients are more likely to experience jaw necrosis than women taking the drugs orally for osteoporosis, but in rare instances the otherwise healthy women are affected.
The medical community is eager to figure out why bisphosphonates have this side effect in some women—although very rare, it's common enough that it may scare some women off of taking the drugs. So it's great news that a new study, done at the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, has identified a genetic variation that makes patients significantly more likely to develop jaw necrosis than people without the genetic variation. Although there's no clinical use for this discovery yet, the hope is that in the future women will be able to be tested to find out if they're at risk.
Of course, as we've written before there are reasons besides jaw necrosis to think twice about taking these drugs: They place you at an increased risk of rare (but serious) thigh fractures and have been linked (again, in rare cases) with esophageal cancer.
More important information about bone health: