There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
How estrogen therapy influences bone metabolism in postmenopausal women has previously
been studied using several approaches, including bone densitometry, measurement of
biochemical markers of bone turnover, and histomorphometry. Taken together, these
investigations suggest that conventional doses of estrogen protect from bone loss
predominantly through suppression of bone resorption, with little evidence to suggest
that a stimulatory action on osteoblasts is also involved. In contrast, studies of
patients treated with estradiol implants suggest that, following prolonged exposure
to relatively high estrogen levels, an additional stimulatory effect on osteoblast
function is observed. The suggestion that estrogen stimulates osteoblast activity
in postmenopausal women under certain circumstances is consistent with other evidence
that estrogen is an important physiological regulator of osteoblast activity. Furthermore,
these findings raise the possibility that it may be useful to develop strategies for
treating postmenopausal osteoporosis that aim to reproduce the stimulatory action
of relatively high estrogen levels on bone formation in postmenopausal women.