Effect of Qianggu Paste on improving the quality of life of postmenopausal patients with osteopenia

Objective To evaluate the effect of Qianggu Paste (QGP) on the quality of life of postmenopausal patients with osteopenia. Methods A total of 120 women with a mean age (57.67±2.86) years treated in the 2st affiliated hospital of zhejiang chinese medica university were enrolled in this study from October 2015 to December 2016. They were randomly divided into the QGP group (60 cases) and the alendronate (ALN) group (60 cases) and received treatment for 1 year. The BTMs such as PINP and β-CTX were measured. Lumbar and hip bone mineral density (BMD) were measured. The SF-36 was used to evaluate the improvement of patients' quality of life before treatment and after 1 year of treatment. The SF-36 consists of 36 detailed entries. Results A total of 108 patients completed the study, 56 in the QGP group and 52 in the ALN group. After 1 year of treatment, the serum levels of BTMs in the two groups were significantly lower than those before treatment, and there were significant differences in serum PINP, β-CTX levels and their mean percentages between the two groups after treatment (both P<0.001). There was no significant difference in hip and lumbar BMD before and after treatment and between the two groups (P>0.05), but between the two groups, the mean percentage change of lumbar BMD (P<0.001) and hip BMD (P=0.022) were statistically significant, and the QGP group was better than the ALN group; before the assessment of the quality of life, the SF-36 scores of the QGP group and the ALN group were (112.38±2.13) and (111.79±2.06), respectively. There was no significant difference between the two groups (P=0.147). There were significant differences after the treatment in the two groups (P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference between the group of the QGP group and the ALN group after 1 year of treatment (P<0.001), and the quality of life score of the QGP group was significantly higher than that of the ALN group. Conclusion The treatment with QGP group could significantly reduce the serum BTMs of women with osteopenia and also could make the BMD better and significantly improve the quality of life of patients.