Osteoporosis affects millions of people around the world — both men and women. Your body is constantly breaking down old bone and replacing it with new tissue. However, as you enter your forties and fifties, your body starts to slow down. More bone is broken down than is replaced.
If you could look at the inside of your bones, you would see that they aren’t exactly solid. The tissue of your bones makes a sort of honeycomb shape — there are spaces in there! People with osteoporosis have much larger gaps in their bone tissue. The outer shell of the bone gets thinner, making your bones more brittle.
What puts you at risk for osteoporosis? If you have a family history of the disease, watch out for it to strike your bones, too. You may also be at risk if you haven’t gotten enough calcium through your life, or if you take certain medications — glucocorticoids, anti-seizure medications, certain cancer treatments, and antacids that contain aluminum. Small body frame, extended bed rest, and broken bones as an adult can also increase your risk of developing osteoporosis. When women reach menopause, they may start to lose bone quickly; for men, the loss of bone mass goes more slowly. However, by the age of sixty-five or seventy, both men and women are losing bone at the same rate.
Osteoporosis can affect any of your bones, but is most commonly seen in the hip, wrists, and spine.
You may not realize that you have osteoporosis until you break a bone or start to get shorter. Don’t wait until it’s too late! Ask your doctor about a bone density test to see just how solid your bones are. If you weigh less than 154 pounds, you should try to have a bone density test close to your sixtieth birthday. Otherwise, you can hold off until your sixty-fifth.
Learn more about osteoporosis:
- Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center
- National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
- National Institute on Aging
- National Osteoporosis Foundation