Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disease characterised by a significant degree of bone loss and changes in the bone quality that leads to decreased bone strength and an increased risk to sustain fractures, even after minimal trauma. The most common sites of fracture are the hip, vertebrae and wrist.

It is the most common of all metabolic bone diseases and is an important cause of ill-health in the elderly.

For years scientists branded osteoporosis and resulting hip fractures as a disease suffered exclusively by postmenopausal women. But fact differs from fiction: one third of all fractured hips and vertebrae due to osteoporosis occurs in men.

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There are a number of conditions in which osteoporosis is a common feature:

• Regular use of corticosteroids
• Cushing’s disease
• Deficiency of female or male sex hormone, such as oestrogen and testosterone in females and males respectively
• Overactive thyroid
• Calcium deficiency
• Scurvy
• Malabsorption of food from the gut
• Immobilisation
• Chronic heparin use
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Alcoholism
• Epilepsy
• Diabetes mellitus
• Emphysema
• Malnutrition

However, the form of osteoporosis most people want to know about is that which occurs in postmenopausal women, as a result of decreasing levels of oestrogen. Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a condition that is characterised by the following features:

• Low bone mass
• Loss of the normal bone architecture which leads to deterioration of the tissue of the bone and so to the fragility of the bones
• A consequent susceptibility to fracture of the fragile bones

National Osteoporosis Foundation of South Africa
PO Box 481
Bellville
7535

Tel. (021)-931 7894

Read more:
Visit Health24's Osteoporosis Centre
 

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