Researchers have identified a new hormone, CCN3, that significantly strengthens bones. This discovery, made while studying how breastfeeding women maintain bone density, could transform the treatment of osteoporosis and bone fractures. In lactating mothers, the high demand for calcium needed for milk production can lead to significant bone loss.
Normally, estrogen is protective for women, helping to counteract bone loss by promoting bone formation. However, its levels drop sharply during breastfeeding. Despite this drop, breastfeeding women seldom experience osteoporosis or bone fractures, suggesting another factor is at work to protect their bones.
Dubbed the “lactation-induced brain hormone,” CCN3 is found in the brains of lactating mice and plays a crucial role in maintaining bone strength during lactation. “One of the remarkable things about these findings is that if we hadn’t been studying female mice, which unfortunately is the norm in biomedical research, then we could have completely missed out on this finding,” Holly Ingraham, senior author of the new study and professor of cellular molecular pharmacology at UCSF, said in a press release. The researchers discovered that increased CCN3 levels in mice showed significant bone mass and strength improvements, even in older mice and those lacking estrogen.
Tests demonstrated that mice with higher CCN3 levels had much stronger bones, as the CCN3 hormone stimulated skeletal stem cell activity. Without CCN3, these m.