Abstract

Inhibition of Bone Loss by Cissus quadrangularis in Mice: A Preliminary Report.

Women drastically loose bone during and after menopause leading to osteoporosis, a disease characterized by low bone mass increasing the risk of fractures with minor trauma. Existing therapies mainly reduce bone resorption, however, all existing drugs have severe side effects. Recently, the focus is to identify alternative medicines that can prevent and treat osteoporosis with minimal or no side effects. We used Cissus quadrangularis (CQ), a medicinal herb, to determine its effects on bone loss after ovariectomy in C57BL/6 mice. Two-month old mice were either sham operated or ovariectomized and fed CQ diet. After eleven weeks, mice were sacrificed and the long bones scanned using pQCT and μCT. In the distal femoral metaphysis, femoral diaphysis, and proximal tibia, control mice had decreased cancellous and cortical bone, while CQ-fed mice showed no significant differences in the trabecular number, thickness, and connectivity density, between Sham and OVX mice, except for cortical bone mineral content in the proximal tibia. There were no changes in the bone at the tibio-fibular junction between groups. We conclude that CQ effectively inhibited bone loss in the cancellous and cortical bones of femur and proximal tibia in these mice.

Banu J, Varela E, Bahadur AN, Soomro R…
J Osteoporos 2012
PMID: 22779034 | Free Full Text

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CQ may primarily attenuate bone resorption in OVX mice through the downregulation of proinflammatory cytokines but it does not rule out the possibility that it may also act through other pathways. There are reports that CQ also enhances bone mineralization by accumulating mucopolysaccharides at the site of bone formation [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control14]. Moreover, CQ is reported to increase calcium uptake and mechanical properties of bone in rats [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control15]. Phytochemical analyses of CQ show the presence of high levels of calcium, vitamin C, β-carotene [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control38, The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control39], and flavanoids [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control25] some of these substances have established beneficial properties on bone. In vitro studies have shown that ethanolic extracts of CQ increased mRNA and proteins related to the bone formation pathway and IGF-I, IGF-II, and IGF binding protein [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control40, The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control41]. More investigations are necessary to elucidate the mechanism(s) by which CQ influences bone metabolism. However, it is very encouraging to note that in studies done with CQ using very high doses (5000mg/kgbodyweight) [The following popper user interface control may not be accessible. Tab to the next button to revert the control to an accessible version.Destroy user interface control9] have not reported any toxic side effects. In the present study, we have used only 500mg/kgbodyweight of CQ and observed that the liver, spleen, and kidney weights were not altered significantly, suggesting that CQ may not have any severe side-effects….

We conclude that CQ can reduce OVX induced bone loss and it does this in the long bones in a site-specific manner with more effects on the cancellous bone of femur followed by tibia. CQ probably reduces bone resorption primarily by downregulating proinflammatory cytokines that are often increased after ovariectomy. The beneficial effects of CQ are probably due to the flavanoids present.