Supplements for bone health: What is safe?

@kathleen1314 Thank you for sharing. I had seen Fortibone and others, but didn’t know whether people had digestive issues either any brands.

@marcelalondero
No medications . Just sensible diet but I can’t eat much dairy unfortunately. I do eat a lot of green veg and Kale etc. I take fortibone everyday sprinkled on porridge . My osteoporosis is quite severe according to the dexascan however a bone specialist and a panel of spine surgeons agreed that spinal fusion would be ok. A bit frightening but I went ahead . Unfortunately at this stage the op hasn’t taken away my pain but I am still in tact !! I suffer with chronic fatigue so recovery is hard . I have been fit and active all my life and am frustrated at the moment as I am not well enough to do anything except walking . Life’s a lottery and we all make choices rightly or wrongly .

Perhaps someone can add information about the safety of using collagen if you have estrogen-positive breast cancer. There are a lot of recommendations to add collagen to our diets when we are trying to build bone health, and lord knows, I'd love to try it too. But I seem to recall attending an online presentation by a nutritionist who works with breast cancer patients and she cautioned those of us with breast cancer to be cautious about using collagen. It may fall into that unwelcome category of avoiding supplements that could encourage breast cancer growth even if it might also offer healthier goals, such as building bone.

She did not say definitively do not take collagen but she clearly was wary of it. Interestingly, though, she said there was some promising research in the use of creatine even if you had breast cancer.

I haven't pursued looking into this one yet, but thought maybe others have.

@pmhpesp5 I take AlgaeCal collagen, purchased on Amazon. It was the cheapest one I could find that contains Fortibone. It's cheaper if you buy 2 at a time.

I've been using Collagen Peptides by Algecal

@prarysky
This is what I see on line:
"So far, no studies have shown that taking collagen supplements raises your risk of breast cancer. Collagen from supplements is broken down during digestion, so it doesn’t act like the collagen that’s already in your breast tissue. Cancer research has found that collagen in the body plays a role in how cancer cells grow and spread to other organs. However, researchers haven’t studied how taking a collagen supplement might affect breast cancer. Until more research is done, we don’t know how collagen supplements might affect breast cancer."

Even in animal studies no studies have looked at collagen supplements and their relationship to breast cancers.

But...out of an abundance of caution some doctors do not recommend collagen supplements. A program like cronometer would help to monitor your diet to see if you are consuming enough nutrition to maintain collagen. Of course it cannot screen for age and other problems that would lower collagen production which the body does naturally.

@cfic
I actually make my own bone broth or buy organic from stores. I’m trying this rather than use collagen supplements. Out of curiosity, I’ll plan to look for research about bone broth to determine its benefits.

Yes I did that today watched utube on bone broth, great protein source . I think his name was Ryan Taylor he did fabulous posts on osteoporosis and supplements.

@oopsiedaisy Did it help?

@kathleen1314 This is not the first time I've thanked you for such well-informed and useful advice! I'm so happy you are on both Team Inspire, which is where I first read your comments on osteoporosis, and now here on Mayo Connect. I have added the chronometer to my phone but have yet to use it. Always too many things on my to-do-list but will try to move this higher on it.

Meanwhile, I'm going to steer clear of collagen until research suggests it's safe for people with my type of diagnosis.