Bears for stronger bones

Bears appear to produce a substance that inhibits cells that break down bone and promote substances that encourage bone and cartilage-making cells. Currently, 740,000 deaths a year are the result of hip fractures worldwide, a large number of which are caused by osteoporosis.

Nine species of bear are threatened with extinction including the polar bear; the Giant Panda, and the Asiatic Black Bear.

The threats to bears are similar to those amphibians face, but in addition many bears are at risk because they are killed for body parts, such as gall bladders, which can command high prices in black markets in places like China, Japan and Thailand.

Some bear species, known as “denning” bears because they enter into a largely dormant state when food is scarce, are of tremendous value to medicine as they are able to recycle a wide variety of their body’s substances.

Unlike people, who if ‘bed-ridden’ for a five-month period can lose up to a third of their bone mass, bears actually lay down new bone during the denning period.

By 2050 there will be an estimated six million osteoporosis-linked hip fractures globally.

Source:

Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity’ is published by Oxford University Press

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A new generation of antibiotics, new treatments for thinning bone disease and kidney failure, and new cancer treatments may all stand to be lost unless the world acts to reverse the present alarming rate of biodiversity loss.