FRIDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Could a widely used treatment for depression be a remedy for osteoporosis?

Researchers have discovered that the drug Prozac also increases bone mass, at least in adult mice.

"Treating animals for six weeks with Prozac resulted in an increase in trabecular bone mass," said study lead author Ricardo Battaglino, assistant member of the staff in the department of cytokine biology at the Forsyth Institute in Boston. "It was a pretty significant 60 percent increase."

Trabecular bone is one of two main types of bone and makes up most of the spongy interior of the majority of bones.

Although it's way too early to advocate popping Prozac to reverse or stop bone loss, experts say it's a tantalizing lead for future research.

"For several reasons, people need to be cautious because fluoxetine [the generic name for Prozac] has central nervous system effects," said Dr. Grant Mitchell, chief of psychiatry at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y. "But it is interesting that current treatments for bone loss in osteoporosis do not take this approach, so the idea that we could at some point have another approach to reducing bone loss or even rebuilding new bone is actually exciting. Having more options would be great."

The study, which was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, is expected to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry.

Previous research, some of it by the same team, had found that serotonin receptors were commonly expressed on the surface of bone cells. Serotonin receptors govern the entry of serotonin -- a molecule that helps transmit signals between neurons and is implicated in anxiety and depression -- into cells.

Prozac is a member of a group of antidepressants called "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" (SSRIs) that act on this receptor.