| Osteoporosis | |
| Bone is living tissue, not a lifeless structure, that only supports your muscles and flesh. In fact, bone, like other body tissue, changes throughout a person’s life.Bone tissue is constantly renewed through a process called remodelling in which old bone is removed and replaced by new bone. This remodelling is a natural, ongoing process that takes place in a healthy body. It is Nature’s way of seeing that old bone is discarded and replaced with new bone. Loss in bone occurs because, as we age, new bone is not laid down at the same rate as older bone is lost; the result may be a thinning of the bones, referred to as Osteoporosis.Osteoporosis is characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue.WHO defines osteoporosis as a marked reduction in bone density, to differentiate it from osteopenia which refers to mild reduction in bone density. In osteoporosis, the bone density is more than 2.5 standard deviations below the young normal mean (T scale <-2.5).Osteoporosis is often known as the silent thief because bone loss occurs without symptoms.True osteoporosis causes bone pain and or spontaneous fractures of the spine, hip and wrist. Osteoporosis is usually asymptomatic until fracture develops. Older persons with a fracture, especially spontaneous fracture of the spine, wrist or femur should be investigated for osteoporosis. |
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| Prevalence One in four women over the age of 50 has osteoporosis. One in eight men over 50 also has the disease. However, the disease can strike at any age. More women die each year as a result of osteoporotic fractures than from breast and ovarian cancer combined. A fifty-year-old woman has at least a 40 per cent risk of an osteoporotic fracture during the remainder of her life. Up to 20 per cent of individuals, who fracture a hip, die as a result of complications. Fifty per cent of those who survive remain permanently disabled. |
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