A recent study, conducted by researchers at University of Rochester Medical Center and presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver, indicated that a drug already approved to heal bone loss from osteoporosis may also help to prevent and reverse the damage to cartilage that leads to osteoarthritis. Currently, there are no drugs to treat cartilage loss in osteoarthritis, a condition that’s expected to affect some 50 million Americans by 2020. Parathyroid hormone, sold as the prescription drug teriparatide (Forteo), is already approved by the FDA to maintain and heal bone, and earlier studies have suggested that it also affects cartilage cells.