I often feel like a medical detective as I poke around the internet reading PubMed papers on oxytocin and related subjects. I feel so fortunate that our situation with my son's brain tumor happened during a time when we have access to the world wide web. It is such a privilege to have the tools to read and learn all that I have since being dealt this unlucky hand. I think we've made the best of it, however, and I have become fascinated with the world of neuroendocrinology ever since. I guess you can say it's like making lemonade out of lemons!
I've also been sharing my blog with medical (mostly oxytocin) researchers from all over the world. I have received very supportive responses from some of these researchers as they cheer me on and even thank me for letting them know that I have read and applied their research for a useful purpose (to help my son and others). It is gratifying in all ways and I am pleased to know that my matchmaking efforts (between the medical community and the patients/caregivers they serve) are paying off. Slowly but surely, I know patients and their caregivers are chipping away at the medical establishment by sharing our experiment and the existing medical literature with their medical providers. My hope is that persistence will pay off and that conventionally practicing endocrinologists will have their curiosity piqued and more research will be funded to study the role this important neurohormone, oxytocin.
Sometimes I stumble on information that I wasn't even expecting and this is even more exciting... Learning from a neuroscience researcher that opiate antagonists interact with (potentiate) oxytocin was really cool since I did not know that when I decided to have Sasha try Naltrexone. Little did I know that I would later be learning even more about oxytocin's benefits beyond its impact on social motivation and metabolism.
After sending my blog to an oxytocin researcher in France, he graciously shared one of his recent publications with me which was on the role of oxytocin in bone health (as well as with metabolic health). Here are a few of articles cited from the literature on oxytocin's role with bone health and metabolic disorders.
1. https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/hmbci.2016.28.issue-2/hmbci-2016-0045/hmbci-2016-0045.xml
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530313/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435037/
I started to wonder if my son and others who have oxytocin deficiency also suffer from bone health issues? Oxytocin is a neurohormone made in the hypothalamus and secreted by the posterior pituitary gland, like vasopressin, the antidiuretic hormone. I have suspected that many sufferers of central Diabetes Insipidus (DI) are probably missing oxytocin since the neuroanatomy affecting their DI is very similar to the neuroanatomy affecting oxytocin production and secretion. Unlike DI, there isn't really a proper label for those who suffer from oxytocin deficiency- no official disease name- unless you count some disorders that may be linked in part to oxytocin deficiency (autism, PWS, Hypothalamic Obesity, PHP, etc.). Well, when I sent the paper on oxytocin and bone density to a Facebook group on DI, I received some confirmation from members that there IS some prevalence of osteoporosis and other bone defects, suggesting some overlap between DI and posterior pituitary hormone deficiency- perhaps oxytocin?? Then I looked at PubMed and AHA...! There were more papers documenting the co-morbidity between DI and bone disorders. Here is one of such papers:
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-lookup/doi/10.1210/jcem.83.7.4987
Interestingly, the authors concluded the following excerpt in their abstract (italicized phrase to emphasize my point): "In conclusion, patients with central diabetes insipidus had a significant bone impairment, compared with healthy subjects. Replacement with endonasal desmopressin at standard doses was not able to prevent or reverse the bone impairment. These findings suggest that, in patients with central diabetes insipidus, bone status analysis is mandatory; and a bone-loss preventing treatment might be beneficial."
I found this additional role of oxytocin very interesting. If you put two and two together, you can see how bone health may be an overlooked condition with sufferers of DI and others who no longer make oxytocin. The above italicized excerpt makes a point to say that vasopressin replacement does not fix the bone problems. Could it be that the OTHER posterior pituitary hormone (yeah, that one) is the one in question? Despite what appears from these studies to be a connection between posterior pituitary hormone functioning and bone defects, in the last five years of my son's post-brain tumor conditions, we have never been asked to test his bone health and he has never been suggested to take supplements (if they would even work) to prevent bone loss.
Yes, I know correlation is not the same as causation and maybe you're not yet convinced that oxytocin is needed for bone health but here's another interesting correlation: PWS (caused by a genetic mutation and leading to abnormal development of the hypothalamus/oxytocin deficiency) has a high prevalence of scoliosis, a bone defect causing a curvature of the spine. I am certainly no expert on PWS but I am now wondering if there is an oxytocin-related explanation for why there is such a high prevalence (estimated at 37% with a range from 15-86% as gleaned by PWS review literature) of scoliosis in kids with PWS since studies have demonstrated oxytocin deficiency in PWS.
Now if I had any sense, I would go to bed now (it's 1 AM)- my curiosity now wants me to look up connections between PWS and DI, panhypopituitarism and bone density, autism and DI, etc.
Oxytocin is known most commonly for uterine contractions during labor, milk let down, etc. Some know it as a potentially useful treatment for social bonding ("cuddle hormone"), mood and anxiety disorders, and autism. Even fewer people know that it is useful for the treatment of metabolic disorders and obesity. I am learning now that it is useful for bone health. I have also heard it is useful in the treatment for pain and perhaps I will look into this at a later date. Oxytocin does so much more than what is conventionally believed! What else will we learn about oxytocin?
Makes you wonder, right?
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