THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 256

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:02.059)
Well, Laura, welcome to the The The Accrescent Podcast.

Laura Yecies (00:06.32)
I’m really glad to be here, Leigh Ann.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:08.832)
I’m excited to have you because we’re gonna be talking about osteopenia. I think I’m saying that right, postmenopausal women. And as I was getting ready for today’s conversation, I felt like a whole new world of information got opened up to me. And as you know, I have this kind of holistic health integrative medicine podcast. So I’m interviewing guests all the time about different areas. And this is one area that I’m like, my gosh, I had no idea this was a thing, that this bone loss was something.

you know, I might be able to expect in my future at some point. So I’m really excited to get to dive into all of this with you.

Laura Yecies (00:42.298)
Right.

Laura Yecies (00:46.223)
And you know, I so appreciate the opportunity to share it with you. And I think a lot of people are in a similar situation where, you know, they sort of take their bones for granted and are not as well informed about, you know, what happens to our bones through age as with other parts of the body. And and it makes such a big difference in our quality of life in the later years to have that musculoskeletal health.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:14.666)
One hundred percent. And I also think, you know, in general we’re hearing a little bit of yes, you lose your bone density, it’s good to lift heavy weights. And that’s kind of where it ends for me. That’s the majority that I’ve heard. So I didn’t even realize there was a even stronger connection to menopause changes in the female body, which I think is gonna be fascinating to get to dive into a little bit deeper.

Laura Yecies (01:38.776)
So more than all more than half of all the bone we lose is lost in menopause, in that menopause transition. So from about two years before menopause, and so that’s sort of tricky because no one knows when they’re going to be a menopause, till about five years after, those seven, eight years accounts for essentially about half of all bone loss. And most women are not

aware of that. We’ve actually surveyed women and we know from the survey that they’re not aware of that connection. I think they associate bone loss with older age. And that is kind of when it catches up to us because when you’re in your late 50s, you’ve lost a bunch of bone, but you have youthfulness in other parts of your body. So your strength and balance are going to keep you from falling and fracturing. And your bones

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:19.745)
Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:36.439)
Hmm.

Laura Yecies (02:38.68)
are still more resilient. And so, you know, that time period that’s so important, you know, is not what people are thinking about. And so we are very much trying to get get the word out. And yeah, and and it’s nice now that we have something non-pharmaceutical that we can do about it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:58.7)
Right, exactly. So we’re gonna get into all the nuance of this, which I’m so excited. From what I understand from some of the research, it sounds like you have a personal story connected to osteopenia. And if you’re comfortable, I’d love to hear a little bit of your origin story, how you found osteoboost. let’s start there.

Laura Yecies (03:02.42)
I am excited to do

Laura Yecies (03:18.667)
Sure. Yeah. okay, so a bit about me. I grew up in a family of doctors, like literally, you know, both my parents, my siblings. and now it’s kind of going around again to my children, my daughter in law. so I’ve always been surrounded by and you know, in my family of origin, if you weren’t a a physician, you know, you were probably a dentist or psychotherapist. So, you know, that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (03:45.216)
huh.

Laura Yecies (03:46.373)
mentality. In fact, my dad was medical director of a nursing home and I worked there a couple of my summers in college. And I saw firsthand what happens when people break a hip, which is if it if they don’t die, they very frequently lose independence and end up in a nursing home. my grandmother clearly had severe osteoporosis. She lost a tremendous amount of height.

You know, she had fractures. my mother was diagnosed with osteoporosis. And so when it, you know, between 52 and 57, I had lost 13% of my bone density. I had to request the DEXAs at 52 and 57. and then my doctor said, well, you only have osteopenia. Good news, you don’t have osteoporosis. Well, it it was better than having osteoporosis.

But it wasn’t good because, you know, that seemed to be in my future. And you know, the other thing she said was, you know, keep, you know, doing what you’re doing in terms of, you know, a lot of exercise, you know, calcium. So, you know, I was doing those things and still had lost bone. And so I around that time, it just so happened I was introduced to the company. So I had been, you know.

working in medical technology for a little while, was connected to the company. And when I saw what osteobuse was, now granted at this stage it was early in the clinical trial. And so we didn’t have the data to back up, you know, the claims that we have now. We had strong hypotheses. We had reasons to believe there was the research on whole body vibration and animals and people.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:25.997)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (05:40.572)
But I thought, you know, if this works and there’s a good chance of it working, you know, I think this could be something very impactful. And so I was excited to join. I was, we spun out of a medical device incubator. So there had been people working on the device in a consulting fashion. and as I said, the clinical trial had started, but the company really didn’t have anyone in it. So I I was the first CEO, I was the first employee.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (06:05.56)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (06:09.809)
I raised the capital. We closed our first funding round about nine months after I joined. And, you know, I led, you know, wrapping up the trial, which actually took a little while because it was COVID, analyzing the data, and then going through this FGA clearance process, which was quite rigorous. I learned a lot from that, and we were able to achieve a de novo.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (06:32.001)
Uh-huh.

Laura Yecies (06:36.871)
Clearance, which is very unusual for startups. What that means is the FGA r reviewed not just safety but also efficacy data, and that it’s sort of a new category of devices. So we got that approval in the beginning of 24, and then we launched our device commercially in 2025. And since then it’s it’s

Going very well. We have many, many thousands of devices in the field. We have many that patients have been using now for more than a year and reporting, you know, strong DEXA improvements. So, you know, frankly, that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:07.522)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (07:20.448)
Yeah, exactly. So I’m gonna pull it back and take us back to the six for a second for myself as much as anyone in the audience who might not be familiar, but so I’m gonna ask you to define some of these things that are probably way oversimplified. But let let’s start with what is osteopenia and then what is osteoporosis? How are they different?

Laura Yecies (07:34.164)
great. Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (07:43.557)
So they exist on a continuum. So you have normal bone density, and you know, density is what you what it sounds like. You your bones have like a a scaffolding structure, and they’re not solid, right? But there’s the mineral in there, the mineral content. And then over time, the spaces between the scaffolds get bigger, and some of those scaffolds break. And so there’s more.

non-bone material within this space. Okay, so our bone mineral density peaks typically around age 30. So and like during puberty is a time of tremendous bone building. So it’s a really important time for young people to be stimulating their bones with exercise and also getting good nutrition. So you know one of the things that we see are men and women who have been

like endurance athletes during that time period oftentimes they don’t get enough food. And a sign of this is the girls stop getting periods because they have too little fat content. So that’s actually a big problem for your bones because that’s when you’re building. So for the parents out there, keep an eye on that for your for your kids. And then your bone density peaks and slowly declines.

So there’s the slow decline period for both men and women. Men peak with more bone. So they tend to get to osteopenia and osteoporosis older, but they get there, especially if they live longer. And of course, there’s a range. So, you know, this you have a like a typical bell curve of half the people have lower bone density. They’re below average bone density, right?

However, women have this accelerated bone loss period, as we talked about before. So then the difference between men and women kind of enlarges after menopause. And then typically late 50s, around 60, the women go back into that sort of slower loss. So we have set up just definitions of density that if you’re more than one standard deviation below that 30-year-old average.

Laura Yecies (10:09.76)
That is a T-score of minus one. If you are two and a half standard deviations below average, that’s a T-score of minus 2.5. And so below minus 2.5 is considered osteoporosis. Minus 1 to minus 2.49 is considered osteopemia. And minus 1 to 0, and actually then the positive numbers are all considered normal bones.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:37.006)
Okay.

Laura Yecies (10:40.533)
So and and people will go through these phases, you know, as they age.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:46.689)
Mm-hmm. Okay, now help me understand. I know I’m asking a lot of foundational questions to start, and then we’re gonna get into all the nitty-gritty of Okay, I’m glad. How is how are these things being diagnosed? You’ve given us this like T minus one, T minus 2.5. What is that test? Is that a blood test? Is that like an energetic test? They’re standing on a plate.

Laura Yecies (10:53.025)
Yeah, these are great questions.

Laura Yecies (11:01.941)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (11:09.502)
Yeah, it the there’s actually new testing methodologies coming out, but by far and away, the most common and really the standard is a DEXA scan. So it is a type of x-ray. and the nice thing about it is it’s very low radiation. So it’s less radiation than a dental x-ray, but you get it, you know, at a clinic or a hospital or a radiology office, it’s very quick.

So you lie down a table, the scanner goes over your body, and you know, it’s sort of measuring how much radiation is transmitted. And so, and it’s also not typically that expensive. They’re usually covered by insurance, but if for some reason yours is not covered by insurance, shop around and it should be, you know, maybe in the low hundreds of dollars, like 150, something like that.

So that’s the the typical test. There’s a couple of other tests that have FGA clearance. there’s an ultrasound test. There’s now modalities where if you’ve had a CT scan for other reasons, like let’s say you were checking if you were needed to get your appendix out. So you have a CT scan that looks at bones. So that CT scan can be uploaded.

And there’s certain companies that will analyze that. But for ninety, and the ultrasound one is called REMS, Echo Light REMs. But for ninety-five plus percent of your listeners, the the answer is ADEXA. And yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:37.976)
wow. Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:51.821)
And then the the average person who’s getting that, is it because they’re having such severe symptoms that they’re going to the doctor? Okay, good.

Laura Yecies (13:00.11)
This is now this is my favorite question. So the US Preventative Services Task Force says that people should get DEXs at 65. However, we just spoke before that all this bone loss is happening in the 50s. So especially for women. So the US PSTF recently changed their guidance that for women who have risk factors, they can should get it earlier.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:16.173)
Right, for for women women specifically with menopause. Uhhuh.

Laura Yecies (13:28.889)
My and now we’re getting into the my personal point of view, which is I believe all women should have a baseline test at 50 or before menopause. Because especially you’re about to go through this period of bone loss, are you starting at a normal level? Are you already below average? And women are now making hormone replacement therapy decisions during that time period. And

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:40.195)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (13:58.173)
Hormone replacement therapy, or now it’s called menopausal hormone therapy, does help to preserve your bones. So if you have below average bone density, that is something to take into account when you’re making a decision on hormones. I would even start to push it further, which is, you know, should we look at an even younger age, right? Because the interventions probably work better the younger you are.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:25.346)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (14:25.914)
So in your forties you could probably build back more bone more readily than in your fifties.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:32.333)
Completely, you know, it’s reminding me I I interviewed Prenovo. I don’t know if you know them. They’re like an MRI. and I went and did it myself. And I’m ther I was thirty at the time. And it’s like I how great to have a baseline. And in my opinion, and this is kind of what integrative medicine is all about, is the sooner you can have a baseline, the better. And of course, within reason, we’re not necessarily like everyone needs to go out and do every screening, but

Laura Yecies (14:37.285)
Course. Yeah.

Laura Yecies (14:42.704)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:00.609)
I do think in general conventional medicine can tend to be watch and wait until it’s such a big problem that now it’s gonna be such a big thing to recover from.

Laura Yecies (15:11.193)
Well, and conventional medicine, like these guidelines are optimizing at a population level. So, you know, that d doesn’t optimize for you making decisions about your own body. Right. So and you know, especially I you know, I don’t have an opinion about pronounvo. you know, in general I love the idea of prevention and and wellness, but

The DEXA is such a benign test. Now I’m not saying you should have one every month. It’s not that benign. It does have radiation. But you know, on an every couple year basis or, you know, at 50 to s see where you at from a baseline point of view, I think that’s very, very reasonable.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:02.701)
Yeah. I mean, I think the point you’re making of now that we understand there’s such a significant loss the two years before menopause and the couple years after, to be able to get a baseline as you know you’re nearing that window just feels like such valuable information.

Laura Yecies (16:20.279)
Right. The other trend that we’re seeing on the diagnostic front is people are getting DEXA scans for body composition.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:28.928)
really? Okay.

Laura Yecies (16:30.07)
Yes. so that is really becoming a thing, especially with the GLP ones. But this has been done like bodybuilders have been doing this, you know, people who are very fitness oriented will do the whole body DEXA to get, you know, their fat and muscle and bone content. Now that is not an official diagnostic for osteoporosis or osteopenia, but you can get sort of a an idea from the whole body DEXA.

if your bone is on the low side and then do a follow-up. And it’s actually the same machines. So GE and whole logic, you know, make these machines and it’s sort of like two modes on the machine, the whole body body comp or the medical Dexa of the hip and spine.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:03.513)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:12.729)
Got it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:18.711)
Yes. So now once someone has maybe been diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, as f as much as you’re able to tell us, what does the conventional approach look like with that? Okay, you have osteopenia. Here’s what we might suggest for you from a conventional medicine doctor.

Laura Yecies (17:37.567)
Okay, so a conventional medicine doctor will say you have osteopenia, but let’s run a secondary test called a FRACS, and that is spelled F R A X. It is a free kind of like open source test. So anyone can go on, you know, Google FRACS and you can check your own FRAC score, and it is what your fracture risk is. You input the DEXA data if you have it, but you can actually use FRACS.

without a dexa. So I like to put that out there as a public service. It’s a free test that will help assess your your fracture risk. Okay, so back to conventional medicine. you have osteopenia, you’re let’s say in your late 50s. So fracts will say you have a fairly low risk of fracture and the doctor will probably tell you what my doctor told me, because I had that exact situation.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:10.156)
Yeah, okay.

Laura Yecies (18:33.982)
Exercise, make sure you’re getting, you know, good nutrition, and we’ll check you again, you know, in some number of years. And what’s gonna happen then is you’re gonna keep losing bone. So, and it’s basically saying when you cross the line to osteoporosis or to a high fracture risk, then conventional medicine will begin to treat you with you know, with medication, with bone active medication.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:46.045)
Right.

Laura Yecies (19:02.794)
The most commonly used one, the chemical name is Alendronate, the brand name is Fossamax. and so, you know, we saw this and was like, wait, why are we just waiting for people to lose bone? And of course they should get good nutrition, of course they should exercise if they can tolerate or have the wherewithal to do the more aggressive exercise, you know, power lifting and things like that.

Fine, but most people don’t do that. And those who do are typically not doing it every day. And so, you know, there’s really an important opportunity here to slow bone loss and you know, possibly build bone. And so this was exactly what our target is for osteoboost. Our clinical trial studied postmenopausal women, the average age was 61.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (19:39.875)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (19:45.784)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (20:01.918)
Who have osteopenia but were otherwise healthy, so not on medication. That group was not on HRT, you know, because that would have been a confounder. It’s not a contraindication. You can use hormones with osteoboost. And, you know, what we wanted to see is, you know, to stabilize that group. And, you know, we also saw that those who used it, you know, even more frequently, close to daily.

Many of them gained bone. And so this is this is really who we have been targeting with our device. Now you ask the question, what does conventional medicine say for osteoporosis? So it will say typically if you have between minus 2.5 and minus three and have not fractured.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:33.313)
okay.

Laura Yecies (20:58.576)
It’ll typically recommend a bisphosphonate like Vosimax or Reclast or Ibandrinate or they’re very similar medicines. And if you’re below minus three or you’ve fractured, which means that you if you’ve fractured, you are at high risk of fracture. Right. So that kind of transcends your number because the numbers aren’t a perfect measure. So if you’re at very so minus two point five.

Below you’re at high risk of fracture. They’ll recommend a medicine. Minus three or below, then you start to get into what they call anabolic medications, like avinity, forteo, or timlos. And those are used, depending on the medicine, between one and two years. They are all injectable medicines. And then they need to be followed up by an anti-resorptive like Fosimax to kind of lock in the gains.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:56.719)
Okay.

Laura Yecies (21:57.688)
but here’s the interesting thing is if you use the sort of the most powerful set of medicines, like avinity followed by prolia, over 10 years, the average woman probably gains around 10% of bone density. So that takes you from like a minus three to a minus two point five, maybe a little bit better. So it’s not a cure, right?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:16.846)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:26.766)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (22:28.067)
And remember, we we’re probably losing twenty percent in the fifties. So isn’t it better to preserve that twenty than to have to fight really hard for ten? Right. And fight really hard with medicines with, you know, with adverse effects. Now, they they have a very important role to play. you know, I might be using them in my future, right? Just given my genetics. but right now I’m

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:33.518)
Right.

Laura Yecies (22:57.846)
working really hard to to to stay out of osteoporosis and an osteopenia and hopefully you know improve from there.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:04.152)
Yeah.

This is a a very specific question, so I would not be surprised if you didn’t have the answer, but I’d be curious what percent of patients diagnosed with osteopenia then go on to get diagnosed with osteoporosis. Cause to me it makes me it what it tells me is if it’s a really high percentage, the recommendations the doctors are making for diet and exercise aren’t that effective.

Laura Yecies (23:35.471)
I mean it’s a significant percentage, but it’s probably not the majority, right? Because if you have

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:41.284)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (23:47.295)
I would guess probably more like 20%, 25%. So if you look at the numbers, right now there’s roughly 48 million people with osteopenia and around 12 million with osteoporosis. So, you know, clearly not everyone, and not even a majority, progress to osteoporosis, but a significant number do, right? So that’s 12 million. Then the other thing we need to think

Leigh Ann Lindsey (23:51.428)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:01.945)
Wow, okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:10.605)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:14.031)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (24:16.802)
go back to is osteopenia a safe place from a fracture risk point of view. So if you have osteoporosis, your risk of fracture is, you know, a big multiple, like more than five times higher than a person with normal bone density. But a person with osteopenia has probably two to three times the risk of fracture than someone with normal bone density. So what we’re seeing is that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:25.166)
Right.

Laura Yecies (24:45.143)
52% of all fractures happen in people with a diagnosis of osteopenia. So the per capita is lower than osteoporosis, but there’s more people. So we also are looking at this group with osteopenia and saying, you know, your risk for fracture may not be high enough to warrant a medication because of, you know, the balance of risk benefit.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:52.022)
Okay.

Laura Yecies (25:14.145)
But we don’t wanna be sitting around saying, you’re good, let’s just wait and see what happens. Right? The risk is not zero. Let’s let’s be proactive with this group. And also, you know, osteopenia, the older you are, the higher your risk of fracture. So remember that fracks calculator, one of the biggest things that will change your numbers. You can actually go in and like pretend you’re older or younger and see what happens to your risk.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:35.599)
Mm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:43.31)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (25:44.182)
You know, so an 85-year-old with a minus two and a sixty-five-year-old with a minus two have different fracture risks by a lot. And so, yeah, I think osteopenia should be a wake-up call to you know treat it proactively, try to optimize bone health, and certainly if you’re young, like and you have you know, hopefully a good lifespan in front of you.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:53.571)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (26:14.272)
Like not wait to get worse. Like let’s let’s start to really focus on optimizing, you know, this part of our body.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (26:21.593)
Completely. And I think that’s what my audience is all about is going, how can we be as proactive and preventative as possible? So you know, so we don’t have to bring in such intense protocols, modalities, medications, pharmaceuticals, etcetera. So in

Laura Yecies (26:39.678)
Yeah, you know, and we don’t have the other thing is if you look at the osteoporosis field, and I’m not a biochemist, so I I I don’t have a great why for this, but I have some clear observations, which are we don’t have the equivalent of a statin or metformin, right? Or like an ACE inhibitor. So, you know, like let’s take cholesterol. Of course it’s better to not need.

To take a statin, but the safety profile is good. And you know, you and I probably know many people who have already been on statins for 30 years and could very well be on them for another 20, right? And and hopefully they’ll, you know, die of old age with really, really wide open arteries. Right. and then there’s other medications. So in the osteoporosis world, we don’t have that. There’s

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:30.039)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (27:38.106)
nothing approved to take for 50 years. Right. you know, the most commonly used medicine that I talked about, Fosamax, they recommend a holiday after five years because the side effects start to increase. So those the anabolic medicines are for one or two years. And then you follow up with one of these, you know, courses of

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:40.983)
Right.

Laura Yecies (28:03.729)
An anti-resorptive. So there’s one medication prolia that there’s data on for 10 years. so we don’t even have the type of medication arsenal in the bone field that we do in the metabolic and cardiovascular field from a sort of long-term maintenance point of view. So for maintenance, we have to really be thinking about non-drug alternatives, nutrition, exercise.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:22.508)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (28:33.24)
And of course, you know, I believe Austria boots can play a role there.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (28:36.939)
Yes, so introduce us. I know we I had to set it up for the audience, but introduce us to Osteoboost. What is it? Give us that little introduction.

Laura Yecies (28:40.049)
Sure.

Laura Yecies (28:47.857)
Yeah, so Osteoboost is a wearable medical device. It’s a belt form factor. It uses precision vibration. So if you look at our website, it looks kind of like a fanny pack, but the pack on the back has a lot of technology in it. It uses vibration at a very specific force and frequency that has been shown to improve bone density or reduce the loss of bone density.

we did a gold standard clinical trial. So it was randomized. There was a placebo or sham group in a treatment group over a year, and we did CT scan and DEXA scan of their spine and hip. And what we showed is that the treatment group had an 85% reduction in bone loss in their spine compared to the sham group. And I mean, there are a lot more details than that, but based on those results, we got the FGA.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:40.834)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (29:46.435)
clearance. it’s something that you wear 30 minutes a day. Most patients, you know, report that it feels good to wear it. It’s quiet. You can wear it while you’re walking the dog or standing at your standing desk. You can’t be sitting, but you can be, you know, I use mine, I keep it either at my desk or in the kitchen. And if I’m chopping vegetables or, you know, putting things away, I’ll wear the belt.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:02.979)
We can do more.

Laura Yecies (30:15.802)
personally, my from 57 to 61, my bone density was stable and I gained a little bit in the hip. so I was really pleased with that with with no with no medication. it’s been on the market now for about a year. There’s a companion app, which helps, you know, kind of remind you to use it and you know, helps with compliance. And then everyone who

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:26.606)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (30:43.875)
Buys the Belt has one year of an osteoporosis exercise program included. And so we acquired a company called Wellen, and they designed this, it’s a PT design program for bone, you know, for patients with osteopenia and osteoporosis. It improves strength and balance in particular. And so that’s that’s the device. we’re already having patients, you know, report improvements since.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:50.575)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:03.566)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (31:13.154)
We launched last May.

You need a prescription, but we also have we you can get the prescription from your personal physician, but we have a telehealth option. So that you know makes it very easy. to get it, you order on our website, and we have a specialty pharmacy that ships direct to the patient. So there’s three sizes: small, medium, and large. yeah, it’s it’s been a labor of love.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:35.214)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:40.111)
Talk to us about Yeah, well talk to us about the mode of mechanism. How is this vibration in the spine reducing bone density loss?

Laura Yecies (31:50.841)
Yes.

Okay, so the natural ways bone cells are stimulated to remodel and improve their density is through mechanical forces. So that’s why everyone talks about jumping and weightlifting, because when you jump, you’re sending sort of vibration waves through the skeleton. If you are lifting weights, your muscles are literally pulling on the skeleton, and there’s sort of vibration from that. So NASA many years ago.

Was looking for ways to improve bone density in astronauts. Astronauts lose bone density dramatically in space. And so they experimented with standing on vibration platforms. So that was so vibration had been studied in animals at both a cellular level and sort of whole animal level, but then NASA funded this research on whole body vibration platforms. They looked at different mechanisms, 30 hertz.

0.3 G of force was found to be the best. However, none of those platforms successfully were not successful in getting any type of FDA clearance. The data has been inconsistent. Their best data is on the feet and ankles. So what they right. So their best bone data is in the parts of the body that are closest to the source of vibration.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:12.431)
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

Laura Yecies (33:23.402)
And of course, vibration kind of dissipates as it goes up the skeleton. So our inventor, who is a physical medicine and pain doctor, physiatrist in Atlanta, he had the idea of putting the vibration in a belt so that it could directly apply be applied to the hips and spine. And so you might say, well, why did why hips and spine? So there’s a good reason for that.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (33:43.886)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (33:50.837)
Those are the two most serious and difficult osteoproduct fractures. So hip fractures are the most deadly. So after a hip fracture, it’s sort of a sentinel event for older people. It has a 20 to 30% all-cause mortality. If you don’t die, you have a 50% chance of losing independence. So even though they can fix, you know, pin the hip, it’s still very devastating.

The most common fracture are vertebral fractures. And yeah. And so what typically happens is the vertebra collapses and it often collapses in the front. And so you know how we think of little old ladies or older people as being small. So the reason why they have lost so much height is typically vertebral fractures. They often go undiagnosed, sometimes they’re very painful.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (34:24.291)
Really? wow. I did not know that.

Laura Yecies (34:49.225)
Sometimes they’re not painful. You know, someone could have lost height and they didn’t have pain. And then you can see that they’ve that they’ve had fractures. So, and then there’s really not great treatments for vertebral fractures. So you kind of let it heal, but you don’t get the height back. And oftentimes there’s long-term pain. By the way, I talked about wedge fractures. So oftentimes there’s a fracture at the front of the vertebra.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:05.657)
Okay.

Laura Yecies (35:18.237)
Right, because we all tend to hunch. It puts more pressure in the front. And then once one of those vertebra collapses in the front, then the spine is stacked a little bit forward and it’s putting even more pr pressure on the front. And it kind of goes more and more and more. So there sometimes they’ll try to build back up the vertebra with cement or you know some other injection. But basically it’s not good.

And it’s better to prevent it. And so our founder, Dr. Mangrum, was looking, he was very much focused on these vertebral compression fractures and how can we prevent them. And so he thought, let’s put the vibration on the sacrum. It will focus on the hips and lumbar spine. And, you know, we can in the future think of ways that we can do other parts of the body, but you know, if you

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:47.651)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (36:14.905)
Fracture your wrist, that’s another common fracture for older women. It’s it sucks, right? It’s really inconvenient, it’s very painful, but the chances are it’s gonna get fixed and it’s gonna heal well.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:27.716)
Right.

Laura Yecies (36:28.821)
if you fracture your vertebra, they’re probably not going to do anything about it but tell you to take pain medicine until it feels better. So you know, and that’s how you end up in that hunched over, you know, loss of height. So we are determined to help people have everything at their disposal to try to prevent these fractures.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:52.961)
Yeah, I the fact that you said you only have to wear it for 30 minutes a day blows my mind. I thought for I already was sold because it’s it’s non-invasive, it’s easy to use, you know, it’s very straightforward. But if you had said zero side effects, if you had said you need to wear it for eight hours a day, I’d be like, done, great, easy. 30 minutes is that’s wild that you are seeing such amazing results from just 30 minutes.

Laura Yecies (37:05.255)
Safe, zero serious adverse effects.

Laura Yecies (37:20.516)
Yes, and you know, it’s also a lesson in terms of your bones. Frequency, you know, short intense bursts of jumping and weightlifting. you know, you need to just provide that kind of that’s that stimulation, that you know, trigger for the bones to activate. but yeah, we had very good compliance in the clinical trial, and I think that’s the reason. You know, 30 minutes a day, you

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:48.921)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (37:50.497)
You’re s you’re gonna find some time where you’re standing, right?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:53.972)
Exactly. And that’s just huge too. And I also think this is probably something you talk about a lot. They’re recommending intent, you know, intense workouts, they’re recommending heavy weightlifting. And some people might be in a certain state that that’s not really accessible to them.

Laura Yecies (38:09.263)
Yeah, you know, the woman who ran our trial is a PhD of physical therapy at University of University of Nebraska Medical Center. And she one of the things that she talks about is, I mean, she’s an incredible advocate for exercise. But she goes, you know, a lot of my women, they can’t get to the gym. They may not live near one. The weather can often be difficult. and so these things are not either or.

It’s good to give people more options. And by the way, we hear from a lot of women who they’re like, they do the exercise, right? They’re doing everything right. But if your genetics are such that your peak bone mass is low, you know, half the people have below average bone density, right? 25% of people are below the 25th percentile, right? You may need to do more.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (38:47.693)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:05.429)
Mm-hmm. Completely. So who who is this for? I know in some ways there’s an obvious answer, but who is this for? And then when might someone consider using osteoboost?

Laura Yecies (39:18.017)
Yeah. So it is designed specifically for the women who I described that are in our were in our trial, right? Because that’s what we have evidence for. That’s what we submitted to the FDA. So they are postmenopausal women with osteopenia. so we saw, you know, our typical patients in the study were in their 50s, 60s. We had patients in their 70s.

you we describe what osteopenia is. You can use it, you know, you it’s not excluded if you’re using medication. Right? and so you know, and and that’s by the way, I don’t know, about 30 million people. So that is a very large population of women with with osteopenia. I very often get the question, what if I already have osteoporosis? And

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:05.39)
Right.

Laura Yecies (40:17.355)
You know, what we say to those patients is, you know, you should discuss it with your doctor, like any other prescription treatment. you know, what if you’re a man, what if you have, you know, whatever your condition is, you know, just discuss it with your doctor. We also get questions, what if I had a hip replacement? and you know, of course, discuss it with your doctor. But typically their answer is, you know, you should be fully back to activities of daily living, so fully healed.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:29.284)
Right.

Laura Yecies (40:46.952)
And then and then they usually will will clear the patient.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:46.979)
Right before using this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about why it’s prescription only. Is it because it’s a medical device?

Laura Yecies (41:01.478)
Not exactly. It’s ’cause

There are vibration devices that are not prescription. But we wanted to be able to claim to treat a disease. So, you know, like for instance, what’s the difference between a supplement or a medication? And some supplements, you know, have clinical benefit. What can they claim? Right. So we are claiming to be able to reduce bone loss in women with osteopenia.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:10.328)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:16.49)
okay.

Laura Yecies (41:36.074)
And we’ve studied that and we did a rigorous analysis, it was statistically significant. We could not make that claim if we weren’t a class two medical device. The other thing is prescription means that a doctor is involved. And you know, you can look at that two ways. I mean, I’m sure from a business point of view, it would be easier if a doctor weren’t involved, but we want to partner with doctors.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:46.511)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:04.93)
Uh-huh.

Laura Yecies (42:04.989)
Right. We believe that osteopenia is something important. It’s serious. It’s something that’s someone’s medical condition, you know, requires sort of life lifelong assessment and treatment or awareness of. So just like you’re checking your cholesterol on a regular basis, you should be on top of your bone density. And so we think that that is best done in partnership with a physician. And we want to be

part of that journey, both diagnosis and treatment. You know, if for instance, if someone were borderline and they were an exception and they used osteoboost and lost bone, you know, the doctor might need to to know that. If it’s someone who has gone the other direction, then maybe they can, you know, wait on medications. I just think it’s it’s part of a comprehensive clinical plan in an ideal setting.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:38.745)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:04.427)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (43:04.59)
you know, f for convenience we do have the telehealth option, but of course we hope that those patients are keeping their, you know, c clinician informed.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:14.221)
Yeah. So you might not be able to answer this question. And if it’s okay, no worries at all. But are there any plans to study osteoboost in different demographics, like men, for example?

Laura Yecies (43:27.9)
Yes, I can answer it. we okay, so in the clinical trial that I referenced earlier, we had 126 patients. But we have thousands of devices in the field. And hopefully most of those women are getting DEXAs and are knowing if they use the device. if they’re using our app, the app will automatically track that for us. We also know that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:29.774)
Okay, good.

Laura Yecies (43:56.753)
We have men, we have women with osteoporosis using the device. So we are working on a way to do what’s called like a a registry trial, or you know, re another way it’s referred to as a real-world evidence trial. And so, of course, it will be completely optional for patients, but I think many of them may be willing to share their data because.

Many of them they want to see more progress. I mean, frankly, there’s not a lot of direct competitors in the osteopenia medical device field that have clinical evidence, right? They’re glad that there’s innovation and they, you know, would like to have more data. So I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to gather this and it will essentially be a clinical trial.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:52.921)
Yeah.

Laura Yecies (44:54.054)
And we will be notifying, you know, and announcing that when we have it. We already have several several thousand people who have signed up of interest for future trials. I mean we had a waiting list to get into the two trials that we did do.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:58.765)
Absolutely.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:07.181)
Yeah. That’s amazing.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:13.999)
Amazing. Yes. To that end, is there also a time in which, because we talked about now that we understand as we’re nearing menopause, even though we can never exactly predict when that’s coming, to start prevention before even osteopenia is diagnosed. And

Could there could that be an option where as a woman is nearing that menopausal timeframe, it’s I don’t have osteopenia yet. Maybe there is a s maybe there’s a slight dip in that T-score, but it’s not enough to rank me at osteopenia, but I want to be preventative. Can I use osteo boost?

Laura Yecies (45:45.753)
Right.

Laura Yecies (45:51.289)
That’s a discussion for that woman with her doctor, right? So, what we market is what we study, which is postmenopausal women with osteopenia. And then beyond that, it’s a it’s an individual discussion with the doctor. Now, let’s not speak about osteoboost specifically. Let’s let’s just say general intervention for bone loss. at the beginning of this conversation, I talked about people who maybe didn’t get.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:53.935)
Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (45:58.157)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (46:20.961)
as good of bone density and puberty, right? Because they were endurance athletes, or maybe you know, maybe someone had anorexia or maybe they had bad asthma and they were on a lot of inhaled steroids or had Crohn’s disease or undiagnosed celiac or there’s all kinds of things that can impact your bone density. So if if I’m educated about, you know, bone density and I know I had one of these things, I’d want to be

checking my bone density earlier, right? And if it’s good, then you know, you’re you’re 30, you have normal bone, you don’t have to worry about it. But, you know, let’s know about that. And then I would be looking at all available interventions. So being extra conscious on, you know, nutrition, protein, you know, and exercise. And I, you know, I think it can make a tremendous difference in that window.

So yeah, I I like the direction you’re heading and I think that’s a good way to think about it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:26.699)
Yeah, it’s, you know, in some ways we’re we’re extrapolating here. And there’s a know, there’s within bounds we can do that. it also has me thinking of, you know, you’re wearing it on the spine, and why can’t we like beep bop that around? Maybe we put it on the back of the neck. I know you guys can’t say that.

Laura Yecies (47:41.516)
Right.

Laura Yecies (47:46.101)
so that won’t work. That that I can give you a very clear answer on. So there’s I I mentioned that there’s a bunch of technology in the pack. So some of that is specific to the placement. So the vibrations in the back over the sacrum, right at the very, very base of the spine. So there’s pressure sensors in the device to make sure it’s tight enough.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (47:56.865)
huh.

Laura Yecies (48:12.929)
Because if you think about it, if it’s on too loosely, the vibration is going to like sit on the surface of your skin, jiggling your skin. That’s not helping your bones. It needs to be pressed firmly so that the vibration goes into the skeleton. And we see that as being so important that we measure it. So there’s accelerometers in the pack and also accelerometers in the belt that sit over the hips. So we’re actually measuring how much vibration is transmitted.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (48:20.975)
Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (48:41.952)
Through the body, and then there’s like a feedback mechanism. So imagine two people that are size median belts, and one of them has more, you know, adipose tissue or more muscle or wears thicker clothing between the belt and the spine, the vibration needs to be stronger. So our belt is doing that automatically. Okay, so therefore.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:07.343)
Okay, great.

Laura Yecies (49:09.909)
So that’s good because it’s we know that it’s gonna work on the hips and spine. But then if you put it too high up, the accelerometers aren’t gonna sit over the hip and it’s not gonna measure right. So, you know, and if you try to put it on your arm, it won’t get tight enough. So it’s purpose built for that part of the skeleton. Although I like, you know, your creativity here.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:20.963)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:28.941)
Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Yecies (49:36.395)
And we would like to do other versions of the device for other parts of the body. upper spine, like the thoracic spine, the wrists, we you know, which we talked about. So lots of lots of things we can do here.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:40.344)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:52.724)
Yeah, I know. Well, we can’t help but kind of be future forward and go, Great, what’s next? And I I understand business and how long it takes to really develop things that are efficacious and doing the studies you guys want to do. So it’s more fun to just kind of ask those extrapolative questions.

Laura Yecies (50:09.245)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Well it is scal you know, it is a systemic disease. So, you know, if you’re losing bone, it’s it’s everywhere. In fact, I I met a startup that was trying to see if they could estimate your bone density from dental x rays.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:18.969)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (50:29.106)
interesting. Okay. Yeah well yeah.

Laura Yecies (50:30.835)
Wouldn’t that be cool? The and this in this AI world, there’s a push generally to look at any x-ray that we’ve had. Like it could be a chest x-ray because you’re a smoker. Or, you know, you know, I gave the example of the CT scan for appendicitis. All of these radiographic tests, in theory, have the information that the AI could use to determine if you have.

osteopedia or osteoporosis, or at least to say you’re at risk, go get the DEXA. And I think that is that is happening. That is a when, not if. You know, there’s going to be AI scanning through, you know, the epics and health record systems of the world and saying, you know, Jane Doe, from when you had, you know, your bike accident and broke your collarbone.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:04.675)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Laura Yecies (51:26.598)
We’re now looking at it and relative to your age, your bone density is low, go get a DEXA. Even though you’re forty.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:31.298)
Right.

And that will be amazing. Cause how great is that to be preventive. I mean, look, I’m I’m thirty one and I’m like, I’d like to know what my baseline bone density is right now. And maybe I won’t pay attention to it again until I’m forty and I’ll check in at forty and then I’ll check.

Laura Yecies (51:47.548)
Well, what’s gonna happen at 30 is so I talked about T-scores. Okay, now we’re really geeking out. Is that okay? So T-score was standard deviations where you were compared to a healthy 30-year-old of your race and gender. So I would be compared to a healthy 30-year-old white woman, may US white woman. Z-score, like the letter Z like zebra, compares you against.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:54.934)
I love it. All the way.

Laura Yecies (52:16.399)
your age matched group. So when you’re younger, they use the Z-score. So at 30, you’ll, you know, because the chances are your T-score would never be so low that you would be, you know, at risk of osteopenia or osteoporosis. But half the people are going to have a Z-score below zero, right? And so minus one, you get the same

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:40.022)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Laura Yecies (52:43.874)
minus one standard deviation. And so it’s very interesting to to see where you’re at and see what your Z score is.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:52.493)
Yeah. I I just that to me is just fascinating information. And I don’t think it’s going overboard. I I know there’s also like a spectrum we get into that can become a little obsessive and hyper-vigilant in a way that’s maybe not. But I think being able to go, hey, let’s check in with some of these things every every now and then to have a baseline and have, in my opinion, a really nuanced

baseline. In integrative medicine, you know, the blood work we’re doing and the th the things we’re looking at more regularly tend to be far more extensive than what maybe conventional medicine’s looking.

Laura Yecies (53:24.068)
Right. Well, I suspect you’re looking at the vitamin D level, right? yeah, PTH. If someone’s, you know, losing bone, you would look at that. but that’s you know very interesting. And if you’re a young person with you know, with hyper parathyroid, you might ha not have symptoms and you’re losing bone from that. undiagnosed celiac is, you know.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:29.807)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (53:48.494)
Right.

Laura Yecies (53:52.269)
one of my family members had this. She was losing bone, they couldn’t figure out, they thought all these things. She didn’t have the classic celiac symptoms. And I mean, but it makes total sense because with celiac you’re not absorbing all the nutrition.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (54:10.155)
Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I mean your gut is so inflamed that you’re not able to digest things and break them down and therefore absorb what you’re needing to absorb. Yeah.

Laura Yecies (54:19.266)
Yeah. So I I agree with you. I don’t think it’s excessive. I wouldn’t do one every year in my thirties. But you know, just a a quick check.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (54:27.065)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (54:31.757)
Yeah, to have that baseline. I’m sure we could go on and on, but I want to be conscious of your time. Are there any anything really critical that we didn’t cover that you feel is important?

Laura Yecies (54:44.45)
You know, I’m just really glad that we focused on this proactive prevention conversation. you know, it’s like part of your practice, but it’s, you know, I’m usually trying to advocate for that. So yeah, I’m I’m I’m glad you’re, you know, you have that approach. We’re really just trying to get the word out that that there’s something that you can do to protect your bones that is very safe.

you know, pretty easy to do and has, you know, scientific evidence. And so you know, we’re excited at at this stage and appreciate the opportunity to share this with your listeners.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (55:24.727)
Yeah, thank you so much. It’ll be linked in the show notes, but just so the audience hears it from you, where can they find you? Where can they go to learn more? Where can they get the product?

Laura Yecies (55:33.194)
Yeah, so osteoboost.com. So O S T E O B O O S T dot com. you can reach me, Laura at osteoboost.com. info at osteoboost.com if you have questions. Our support team is great and you know can help people with and we we have lots of FAQs, clinical information on our website. We’ve also hosted some

really great educational webinars with clinicians, leading clinicians, you know, head of the osteoporosis departments at Harvard and UCSF and Duke. And so a lot of great resources for your listeners who, it sounds like, really want to be proactive on their health.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (56:20.142)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming on. This was fantastic.

Laura Yecies (56:24.222)
it’s my pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for all the great questions.