Fragile Bones (Osteoporosis) Risk Factors

Fragile bones (osteoporosis) affect about 75 million people in Europe, USA and Japan. It considered a silent disease, due to gradual and painless loss of bone density. Early detection of risk factors is very logic for everyone. I'll provide you these risk factors in this article.

• Age: During aging process, bone resorption increase whereas, bone formation decrease. Both male and female loss about 0.5% of bone mass every year after age 50.

• Gender: 1 in 3 women over 50 will experience osteoporotic fractures, as will 1 in 5 men. Postmenopausal females are highly susceptible due to anabolic effect of Estrogen, the longer a women are exposed to estrogen hormone, the lower their risk of osteoporosis. Corticosteroids treatment: rheumatoid arthritis long term treatment with prednisone or its derivatives led to high risk of osteoporosis.

• Family history: Individuals with family member has osteoporosis has a 50-85% increased risk of developing osteoporosis.

• Race: Caucasians and Southeast Asians are of high risk more than African American and Latino men.

• Body mass: Thin or lean people particularly females are of high risk.

• Low Calcium intake: Calcium is the main component in bone structure so its deficiency led to high risk.

• Low Vitamin, D intake: Vitamin, D is very essential for Calcium, absorption and metabolism.

• Physical activity: Less active people and low life style people are of high risk.

• Smoking, Alcohol and Excessive Soda consumption. All these factors interfere with Calcium absorption and metabolism.

• Certain medications as Diuretics, Estrogen suppressive, blood-thinning agents, and Anti-cholesterol, agents: All, interfere with Calcium level, absorption and metabolism.

All people at risk should visit Physician and detect the Bone Mineral Density (BMD); witch diagnosed by a DEXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) test that, measures the bone mineral content of the spine, hip, and other parts of the skeleton. In simple terms, an X-ray is beamed to a specific area of the body and results in a computerized calculation based on the amount of light filtering through the tissue. Known as the Bone Mineral

Density (BMD), the test results are numbers representing the Standard Deviation (SD).

The T-scores are then used for diagnosis as follows:

• The normal: T-score above -1.

• Osteopenia: T- score between (-1 and -2.5).

• Osteoporosis: T-score at or below -2.5.