I cannot take any of the drugs having had expensive and painful periodontal surgery in the early years of Fosamax. All the related drugs have similar side effects. I took Algae Cal and within a year I had statistically significant increases in all DEXA measurements. It bears mentioning that the DEXA numbers were set up randomly at first and have never been changed. That is good enough for me, given the heavy drug marketing, the faulty measurements and the results. This is one of those things that doctors panic about until you agree to take often-dangerous drugs.