Name of the medical condition and other names that it’s been known by
• Osteoporosis
• Brittle bone disease
• Porous bone disease
What is Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is a disease that makes your bones weak and more likely to break. It happens when your body loses too much bone, doesn't make enough new bone, or both. In a healthy body, old bone is constantly broken down and replaced with new bone. However, with osteoporosis, the new bone doesn't keep up with the loss of old bone.
Your bones are living tissue, like other parts of your body. They're always changing and growing. Up until about age 30, your body builds more bone than it loses. After that, bone breakdown happens faster than your body can replace it. This causes a gradual loss of bone mass as you get older. If you have osteoporosis, you lose bone mass even faster than normal.
Osteoporosis is often called a "silent" disease because you can't feel your bones getting weaker. You might not know you have it until you break a bone from a minor fall or bump. The most common breaks happen in the hip, spine, and wrist.
Some signs that you might have osteoporosis include:
• Getting shorter (losing an inch or more of height)
• Your posture changing (stooping or bending forward more)
• Back pain caused by a broken or collapsed bone in your spine
Anyone can get osteoporosis, but some people are more likely to develop it:
• Women, especially after menopause
• Older adults (the risk increases as you age)
• People with small, thin body frames
• People with a family history of osteoporosis
• Certain things in your life can also increase your risk:
• Not getting enough calcium and vitamin D
• Not exercising regularly
• Smoking
• Drinking too much alcohol
• Taking certain medicines for a long time
Doctors diagnose osteoporosis using a bone density test. This test uses X-rays to measure how much calcium and other minerals are in your bones. It's painless and quick, like getting an X-ray.
While there's no cure for osteoporosis, there are ways to prevent it and treat it:
• Eating a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D
• Doing weight-bearing exercises like walking or dancing
• Quitting smoking and limiting alcohol
• Taking medicines that help build bone or slow bone loss
• Using walking aids to prevent falls
Trend
• In the United States, about 10 million people have osteoporosis.
• Another 44 million have low bone mass, increasing their risk for osteoporosis.
• These numbers have likely increased over the past five years as the population has aged.
• While exact projections for the next five years aren't available, the number of people with osteoporosis is expected to continue to grow as the population ages and lives longer.
History
Osteoporosis has existed for a long time but was not well understood until the 20th century. In ancient times, people noticed that older individuals, especially women, seemed to shrink and develop hunched backs. But they didn't know why this happened.
In the 1940s, doctors realized that bone loss was a specific condition. The term "osteoporosis" was first used around this time. It comes from Greek words meaning "porous bones." In the 1960s and 1970s, doctors developed better ways to measure bone density, which helped them diagnose and study osteoporosis. Since then, we've learned much more about what causes osteoporosis and how to prevent and treat it.
Source of Information
• Cleveland Clinic
• Mayo Clinic
• National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
• National Library of Medicine MedlinePlus
For informational purposes only. Consult a medical professional for advice.
