For some, Osteoboost might initially evoke TV informercials for gadgets that promise to shock people’s abdominal muscles into six-pack formation while they sit, or mid-20th century contraptions that professed to jiggle away fat without exercise.

But this device, a low-vibration belt that resembles a fanny pack, received approval last year from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It just hit the market as the first and only non-drug intervention for osteopenia–low bone density affecting mostly older people, especially postmenopausal women.

Developed by Redwood City-based Osteoboost Health, the product applies 30 hertz of oscillations per second and 0.3-g of gravitational force to the most vulnerable parts of the skeleton, regulated by pressure sensors and accelerometers that respond to individual bodies.

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“I barely even feel it,” quipped Los Altos resident Rachel Corn, who said she’s been wearing hers at the standing desk in her office or while constructing calcium and protein-rich Greek yogurt dishes at home.

The clinical trial that led to the belt’s FDA approval showed an average 85% reduction in bone loss in study participants.

Just like weight-bearing exercises, the vibrations stimulate osteocytes, which send signals to the two other types of bone cells–osteoblasts and osteoclasts–to create new bone matter and recycle the old.

The technology of using vibration to counteract bone loss came from NASA, which knew since the Soviet cosmonauts that suspension in a zero gravity environment sucks away bone matter.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 54% of postmenopausal women have osteopenia. Corn, 55, is smack in the middle of that 52-57 age bracket when women experience precipitous bone density loss but received her diagnosis at 40.

“It’s a death sentence if you’re active,” recalled Corn.

There was nothing she could do about her progressing bone loss but maintain a calcium, protein and fiber-rich diet, exercise and take a drug that blocks the body’s absorption of bone cells. The pills made her nauseated and stole her sleep. After a few years of enduring these side effects on top of her lifestyle alterations, her bone density plateaued.

“It was clear that this would lead to osteoporosis pretty quickly and it wouldn’t get better on its own,” she said.

Then, she met Laura Yecies, CEO of Osteoboost Health.

Osteoboost was personal for Yecies. During college summers, she had volunteered in the nursing home directed by her father, seeing the demise of people with musculoskeletal frailty. With a family history of osteoporosis and after receiving her own diagnosis of osteopenia, she wanted to break the chain.

Curiously, bone health had never been a “sexy” area for medical innovation despite the widespread need for it. Most people still only address their bone health after a fragility fracture — broken bones in situations a healthy skeleton would withstand.

Yecies said the collapse of fractured vertebrae in the lower back is what makes “little old ladies” little and that a hip break in older age leads to loss of independence and heightened chances of pneumonia, bedsores, depression and even death. “It can be sort of a cascade,” Yecies said.

Patty Hirota-Cohen, in her seventies, has been preoccupied with osteopenia for at least 15 years. She’s seen peers go downhill after breaking bones. “So, I’m trying really hard not to fall,” she said, after a fall prevention class at a community center in San Leandro.

Hirota-Cohen, a respecter of Eastern and ancient medicine as much as conventional medical science, said Osteoboost reminds her of the shaking and bouncing exercises in the Qi Gong ancient Chinese practice for overall well-being.

“There’s so much wisdom there–now, it’s in a belt,” she said.

Earlier this year, one of her yoga students told her about Victor Lau, a Tai Ji Quan instructor. Lau’s discipline is the physical extension of a whole philosophy of muscle development, harnessing of qi (energy) to help people know and control their body. Lau gears classes toward increasing strength, balance, awareness and confidence among his pupils to reduce their risk of injury.

Dr. David Karpf is a Stanford endocrinologist and internationally recognized osteoporosis expert who has been advising Osteoboost Health since 2021. He helped develop the first alendronate sodium medications that accompanied astronauts to space to slow down the breakdown of their bones and also emphasizes the living nature of bones.

Karpf has not pushed the product whose development he advised but has prescribed it for patients who inquire since the device is proven, non-invasive and has negligible health risks.

For now, Osteoboost is labeled as a treatment for postmenopausal women with osteopenia but Yecies already knows of doctors electively prescribing it to other populations such as people with full-blown osteoporosis. The company is researching more labeled uses for the device, such as treatment for men with low bone density, and breast cancer survivors who have undergone chemotherapy and take estrogen blockers to prevent recurrence.

The cost of the device, $995, is not covered by insurance but Osteoboost Health is working on changing that.

“I’ve heard so many women say bone loss is a part of getting old, but I don’t think we need to accept that women get frail,” Yecies said.

Corn, who has been using Osteoboost for a month now, said, “I like the image of women being strong.”

She completed her first triathlon in Napa a couple of years ago in her early fifties, then took on a muddy Spartan race. She trained with her son to shimmy up a rope in less than 10 seconds flat — something readily demonstrated in the gym in her garage.

“People don’t understand how hard it is to do this when you’re older,” she said, expressing pride and wonder at the athletic feats she has accomplished. She’s far from done.

“I want to be swimming and running when I’m 70 for sure,” she said.