There is a sad lack of scientific research to back up the sales claims for most exercise equipment. Probably because a new "miracle" machine, cure, pill, etc is being introduced just about every day, so no studies could possibly keep up. There is a place I like to look to answer these questions, though - The National Institutes for Health has a really cool arm that compiles sometimes obscure scientific studies from all over the world. My favorites are those that a researcher, doctor or team does, where they seek out a whole bunch of small studies on a particular topic. They report a synopsis of each study and its conclusion, then try to reach a conclusion by compiling, comparing, contrasting the various results.

Here is such a study on whole body vibration devises: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4440196/ I read the whole thing, came to the conclusion that the answer is still "we don't really know."

Here is the researchers' conclusion:
"Whole-body vibration exercise therapy is only one of the types of physical activity recommended for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and cannot be used as substitute therapy for pharmacological and dietary treatment methods. But it may complement already known and described postmenopausal treatment methods and bring tangible results in therapy."

What is known? Whole body vibration seems to be safe. The appropriate vibration frequency and intensity to potentially increase bone mineralization density (BMD) is unknown. There appear to be better results when combined with biophosphonate therapy and diet, and done long term.

Here's the good news: Vibratory therapy reduced chronic back pain in each study reviewed.

Once again, as health care consumers, we learn that there is no "magic bullet" or cure, but that with combined strategies and daily effort we can get better.

Are you interested in doing more research? Maybe you could try this in your search engine and see if you find some more information for us? "clinical study whole body vibration osteoporosis"

Sue