ihatemySOST
Iron
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PTH analogs, like abaloparatide and
teriparatide, are being heavily promoted lately for increasing facial bone mass and lower jaw growth, marketed as the "magic solution" to make you a CHAD. But the real question is: does it actually work? The answer is no or to be more precise, yes, but only at doses roughly 2,000 times higher than what people are currently using. I'm going to prove this in this post
In this study, the scientists used the most well-known PTH analogs, Abaloparatide and Teriparatide, on young mice (four weeks old) for a treatment duration of four weeks, with the aim of stimulating jaw growth. This is comparable to treating a child from the age of 8 continuously until they reach 16 years old, essentially from childhood through puberty. They divided the groups into different doses: low dose 80 mcg/kg, medium dose 800 mcg/kg, and high dose 8 mg/kg. But what about the results?
The jaw did not show significant growth in the groups that received low and medium doses, even though the treatment period was very long (from early childhood to the end of sexual maturation, roughly). Significant jaw growth was observed only in the groups that received very high doses for very long periods.
You can see this in the image above there is no noticeable difference in jaw size or length between the control group and those that received low or medium doses
So, what's the problem with that? You might say yourself: "Just use higher doses, and it will work, right?" The answer is no. If we use the official FDA equation to convert doses from mice to
humans, which is HED (mg/kg) = Animal
dose (mg/kg) × (Animal Km / Human Km), and knowing that the mouse Km is 6 and human Km is 37 (so the conversion
factor is 6/37 = 0.162), the human-
equivalent dose becomes extremely high. Let's calculate it using a mouse dose of 8 mg/kg and assuming a human weight of 70 kg: HED = 8 × (6/37) ≥ 1.3 mg/kg, and for a 70 kg person that is 1.3
× 70 ≥ 91 mg, which is roughly 2,000 times higher than the dose people actually use to increase facial bone mass, usually around 40 mcg.
Even the mice weighed only about 100 g, so a dose of 8 mg/kg literally means the scientists were giving the mice 800 mcg daily from childhood through the end of adolescence just to see noticeable jaw growth. Do you really think a 40 mcg dose taken at the very end of skeletal maturation would cause any significant lower jaw growth in humans? JFL
Tldr: Parathyroid hormone analogues are suitable because the dose required to stimulate jaw growth, according to studies on rats, is thousands of times higher than the doses used to treat osteoporosis in humans.
teriparatide, are being heavily promoted lately for increasing facial bone mass and lower jaw growth, marketed as the "magic solution" to make you a CHAD. But the real question is: does it actually work? The answer is no or to be more precise, yes, but only at doses roughly 2,000 times higher than what people are currently using. I'm going to prove this in this post
In this study, the scientists used the most well-known PTH analogs, Abaloparatide and Teriparatide, on young mice (four weeks old) for a treatment duration of four weeks, with the aim of stimulating jaw growth. This is comparable to treating a child from the age of 8 continuously until they reach 16 years old, essentially from childhood through puberty. They divided the groups into different doses: low dose 80 mcg/kg, medium dose 800 mcg/kg, and high dose 8 mg/kg. But what about the results?
The jaw did not show significant growth in the groups that received low and medium doses, even though the treatment period was very long (from early childhood to the end of sexual maturation, roughly). Significant jaw growth was observed only in the groups that received very high doses for very long periods.
You can see this in the image above there is no noticeable difference in jaw size or length between the control group and those that received low or medium doses
So, what's the problem with that? You might say yourself: "Just use higher doses, and it will work, right?" The answer is no. If we use the official FDA equation to convert doses from mice to
humans, which is HED (mg/kg) = Animal
dose (mg/kg) × (Animal Km / Human Km), and knowing that the mouse Km is 6 and human Km is 37 (so the conversion
factor is 6/37 = 0.162), the human-
equivalent dose becomes extremely high. Let's calculate it using a mouse dose of 8 mg/kg and assuming a human weight of 70 kg: HED = 8 × (6/37) ≥ 1.3 mg/kg, and for a 70 kg person that is 1.3
× 70 ≥ 91 mg, which is roughly 2,000 times higher than the dose people actually use to increase facial bone mass, usually around 40 mcg.
Even the mice weighed only about 100 g, so a dose of 8 mg/kg literally means the scientists were giving the mice 800 mcg daily from childhood through the end of adolescence just to see noticeable jaw growth. Do you really think a 40 mcg dose taken at the very end of skeletal maturation would cause any significant lower jaw growth in humans? JFL
Tldr: Parathyroid hormone analogues are suitable because the dose required to stimulate jaw growth, according to studies on rats, is thousands of times higher than the doses used to treat osteoporosis in humans.
