Oxytocin and Bone: Review and Perspectives

Abstract

Recent data demonstrate the anabolic effect of oxytocin on bone. Bone cells express oxytocin receptors. Oxytocin promotes osteoblasts differentiation and function, leading to an increased bone formation with no effect on bone resorption and an improvement of bone microarchitecture. Oxytocin is synthetized by osteoblasts, and this synthesis is stimulated by estrogen. Animal studies demonstrate a direct action of oxytocin on bone, as the systemic administration of oxytocin prevents and reverses the bone loss induced by estrogen deficiency. Although oxytocin is involved in bone formation in both sexes during development, oxytocin treatment has no effect on male osteoporosis, underlining the importance of estrogen that amplifies its local autocrine and paracrine secretion. There are few human data showing a decrease in the oxytocin serum level in anorexia nervosa independently of estrogen and in amenorrheic women associated with impaired bone microarchitecture; in post-menopausal women a higher oxytocin serum level is associated with higher bone density, but not in osteoporotic men. Oxytocin displays many effects that may be beneficial in the management of osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, cognitive disorders, breast cancer, diabetes and body fat gain, all age-related diseases affecting elderly women, opening exciting therapeutic perspectives, although the issue is to find a single route, dosage and schedule able to reach all these targets.