Why is it a problem?
Osteoporosis is a disease in which the bones become weak and are more likely to break. People with osteoporosis most often break bones in the hip, spine, and wrist. These issues result in the loss of bones which may change in some cases and not in others.
How is it diagnosed? An accurate and common test done to diagnose osteoporosis is a bone density test to check a patient’s bone health. These tests diagnose the disease and tell whether you are likely to break a bone, check the density or strength of bones, and see if previous treatments are working.
What causes osteoporosis? There are many risk factors that can eventually lead to osteoporosis, here are some risk factors:
Gender, women are more likely …show more content…
to get osteoporosis
Age, The older you are the higher the risk you have of getting the disease
Body size, small and thin women are at greater risk
Ethnicity, White and Asian have the highest risk, while African Americans and Hispanics have lower a risk
Family history, osteoporosis can run in the family
Sex hormones, low estrogen level and low testosterone can lead to osteoporosis
Anorexia can lead to osteoporosis
Nutrition, low calcium and vitamin D intake leads to risk of bone loss
Lack of exercise or long term bed rest can lead to the weakening of the bones
Smoking and drinking can cause bone weakening and bone loss
Medications can increase risk of osteoporosis
What are the symptoms? Osteoporosis is sometimes referred to as a “silent disease.” Someone may not even know they have the disease until they experience a strain, bump, or a fall that causes a broken bone.
What are the treatments? Osteoporosis may need to be treated using medications but can also be treated by a sufficient intake of calcium and vitamin D, a healthy exercise plan, a healthy lifestyle in general.
What are the preventions? There are many ways osteoporosis can be prevented. The main way to prevent it is to maintain a balanced healthy lifestyle, but here is a more specific way to look at it. To try to ensure prevention of osteoporosis maintain a rich diet with calcium and vitamin D with exercise and little to no drinking or smoking.
Who gets it? The most common populations to get osteoporosis are older White and Asian women with small thin body sizes.
However other ethnicities of women, and also men, can get osteoporosis but are at a much lower risk.
What are the recent discoveries or developments? A recent study from the Aging Bone Research Program (Sydney Medical School’s Nepean campus) experimenting on mice with the compound called picolinic acid, a product derived from amino acid tryptophan , is said to stimulate bone formation rather than just stop bone destruction like other earlier medications.
What effects does it have on the endocrine system? Osteoporosis does not have an effect on the endocrine system it’s self, but can normally occur to do other occurring endocrine disorders in the body due to abnormalities in growth hormones and various other disorders.
What is the incidence? Worldwide, osteoporosis causes more than 8.9 million fractures annually, resulting in an osteoporotic fracture every 3 seconds. Osteoporosis is estimated to effect 200 million women worldwide with approximately one-tenth of women aged 60, one-fifth of women aged 70, two-fifths of women aged 80, and two-thirds of women aged 90. Also worldwide 1 in 3 women over 50 will experience it as well as 1 in 5 men will experience
osteoporosis.
Works Cited
"Drug Discovery & Development." Drug Discovery & Development. Advantage Business Media, 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. <http://www.dddmag.com/news/2013/11/new-treatment-discovered-osteoporosis>.
"Facts and Statistics." International Osteoporosis Foundation. International Osteoporosis Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
"What Is Osteoporosis?Fast Facts: An Easy-to-Read Series of Publications for the Public." Fast Facts About Osteoporosis. National Institutes of Health, n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2014. <http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Bone/Osteoporosis/osteoporosis_ff.asp>.