Osteoporosis,causes And Treatments
Osteoporosis is a disease associated with the weakening of the bones caused by the loss of bone density
. Around the age of 35 both males and females start losing calcium, but women loose more during the menopausal years and are therefore more affected by the disease then men.Many times when older people fall and break a hip it is not because of the fall that the hip broke but it is because the hip broke that they fell. The broken hip is, most of the time, because of brittle bones caused by osteoporosis.Osteoporosis is also referred to as the "silent disease". It doesn't show any real symptoms until it is nearly too late. Medical doctors and gynecologists can test their patients for osteoporosis with a bone density test.
There are a few situations in which people will be more susceptible to osteoporosis and it might be good to have a bone density test if you fit any of the criteria.
Osteoporosis is one of the most dangerous diseases of the bones that tend to an increased risk of bone fracture. For people that are suffering from this terrible disease, the BMD - bone mineral density is significantly reduced, the bone micro architecture is disrupted and the variety and quantity of non-collagenous proteins in bones is altered.
It is estimated that more than 200 million men and women worldwide suffer from osteoporosis. More than that, one out of three females aged over 50 years suffers a fracture because of this disease. Almost one out of five men and women over 50 years who have a hip fracture will die within a year because of its indirect consequences. In 2000, approximately 5.5 million new osteoporotic fractures occurred in women.
Causes
In most cases at first, this disease does not cause any symptoms this is why it is called the "silent" disease. Usually the disease becomes noticed in a very severe way: a fracture of a vertebra, forearm, hip or any other bony site. The fractures can and usually will cause severe back pain and the vertebrae collapse down on themselves and the person actually loses height
People's bones who suffer from osteoporosis become very thin and weak. "Osteo" origin comes from the Greek word "osteon" which means bone; "porosis" comes from "poros" - hole, passage. According to the Medilexicon Medical Dictionary, osteoporosis is "reduction in the quantity of bone or atrophy of skeletal tissue; an age-related disorder characterized by decreased bone mass and loss of normal skeletal microarchitecture, leading to increased susceptibility to fractures".
Estrogen levels - the estrogen protects the bones so a person with low estrogen is more likely to develop osteoporosis. Menopause will further decrease the level of estrogen for a woman and for post-menopausal woman, doctors recommend women to be vigilant about bone health. Women may lose bone at a rate of 4 to 8% per year for several years after their ovaries stop producing estrogen.
Treatments
As it is a living tissue, our bones are engaged in biochemical reactions that depend on many different micronutrients and enzyme systems. Like any living tissue, bones have specific nutritional needs. A diet consisting of white bread, white flour, refined sugars and fat is very much deficient in the essential nutrients for our bones. To reduce the risk of hip, spine & wrist fractures, we must preserve adequate bone mass, prevent the loss of the protein matrix part of the bone and take care of providing sufficient nutrients for repair and replacement of damaged areas of our bones.
Despite the growing concern about cola and osteoporosis, in the United States soft drink consumption continues to increase. A study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, showed that energy intake from soft drinks in the United States increased 135 percent between 1977 and 2001. Young adults ages 19 to 39 drank the most soft drinks, increasing their intake from 4.1 percent to 9.8 percent of total daily calorie consumption during that period.
Typically, the density of a person's bone is measured through use of X-ray absorptiomety and if your score, as ascertained by this test, is between one and two and a half your will be diagnosed as having osteopenia whereas a score of less than minus two and a half means you have an osteoporosis condition. The good news is that for both osteopenia and osteoporosis there are a number of treatment options available that can restore the health of your bones.
You can of course also make use of exercises (weight-bearing) to help you deal with your osteoporosis. These exercises include walking, dancing, low-impact aerobics and even gardening; and, these exercises should be performed for about half an hour each day. It will also pay to do exercises that help to strengthen your muscles and in fact performing strength exercises certainly do lead to a slight increase in density of your bone and this is good for your osteoporosis problem.
by: harry jackson
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