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 Bone Health Technologies, Osteoboost 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 resp

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