Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis, also known as ‘Brittle Bone Disease’ has been referred to as ‘The Silent Epidemic’.
Hundreds of thousands of spontaneous fractures and crush fractures occur every year due to the “bone thinning” that results from the condition known as osteoporosis. Although the whole skeleton is affected, areas commonly affected by fractures are the hip, spine and wrist.
As a result of this condition, height loss and stooping can occur. This can subsequently lead to the vertebra in the spine collapsing.
Predisposing Factors Include:
- A deficiency in vitamin D, very common in modern western society.
- Eating fat-free diets.
- Drinking 2 or more cups of coffee every day can greatly diminish bone mineral density in women.
- For men, alcohol is the major culprit.
Osteoporosis is the name of a condition which causes weakening of the bones, but as this ‘condition’ is becoming more common today, people are beginning to ask, ‘what causes osteoporosis in the first place?’
Bones are not solid, they are porous and any reduction in bone density means less bone and more ‘pores’. Testing for osteoporosis is a measure of the density of our bones. When a person’s bone density drops below a specified level, the subject is diagnosed as having osteoporosis.
There are many reasons why people suffer from osteoporosis. One of these is the imbalance that occurs between new bone production made by osteoblasts and bone reabsorption from osteoclasts. When the rate of bone reabsorption is higher than the rate of bone tissue creation, demineralization and bone thinning will start to occur. Continue reading
