Get the Background Information on Osteopenia and Osteoporosis

Osteopenia
means that your bones are getting thinner,weaker, and less dense. It’s
time to take some action or your next stop will be osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis means that your bones are dangerously weak and there is an
increasing possibility of fracture. 

It’s the fractures that are dangerous. A fall that would
not hurt a young person will actually fracture or break your bones. In
the pictures you can see the difference between healthy bone and osteoporitic
bone.

Hip fractures are the ones that
often lead to death because you need to lie down to recover. Lying
down for long stretches of time will encourage more weakness, strokes
and pneumonia. So it’s not actually the fracture that kills you – it’s
not like a stroke or heart attack. But it will immobilize you and, even
if you do survive, you have a much greater chance of having another fracture
within a year.

Osteoporosis is called the Silent
Killer because it usually doesn’t hurt to have weaker bones. You
don’t even notice it. It’s not until the doctor orders a bone density
test of some kind that you find out you are losing bone. The other way
to find out is to measure your height. As your spine loses substance you
will get shorter.

  Bone Density Tests and What They Reveal

Bone Mineral Density (BMD) tests are used to assess bone
density. Results are defined as a T-score, with normal being between 2.5
and minus 1.0, osteopenia between minus 1.0 and minus 2.5, and osteoporosis
lower than minus 2.5.

The two most common tests of bone density are DXA at
your hip or spine and QUS at your ankle.

Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). This is the most
accurate test available – it can detect even a 1 percent change in bone
density. It’s most often used to measure your bone density at your hip
or spine. This test involves a small amount of radiation. I no longer
believe in the accuracy of this test. The machines were invented in order
to sell bisphosphonate drugs to women who were having normal bone thinning
that occurs with age. Unfortunately our diet and stress level is so bad
that younger women are being diagnosed all the time and given the drugs
which have harmful consequences.

QUS test – instead of radiation, this test estimates bone
density using ultrasound measurements. After placing your bare foot on
the machine, high-frequency sound waves are transmitted through your heel.
The test takes less than a minute. It is an inexpensive test, often found
in drug stores, and will give you a beginning score to know if you have
a problem or not.

Bone density testing is recommended if:

Unfortunately more and more younger women are being tested
all the time so that more drugs can be prescribed. This is actually not
a good thing. Although the claims are that 50% of women will have a bone
fracture, in truth most fractures occur after the age of 82, and most
women die before 80. See my blog post for January 2010.

The negative thing about the bone
density tests is that they test density and not flexibility. When
we have too much calcium in our bones they are dense but brittle and we
have more fractures. No-one has yet figured out a way to test the flexibility
of bone, so the experts don’t say much about it. But that is why the studies
can’t prove that more calcium actually lowers fracture rate. Read the
calcium/magnesium article for more on this topic.

  Risk Factors

Your risk of osteoporosis increases if you’re a woman and
you’re white or Asian.
Other factors also increase your risk, including:

That pretty much covers everyone over 55, doesn’t it?

  How Living Bone Is Created

The way bone-building works is that our bones are living
structures with osteoblasts busy building bone, and osteoclasts just as
busy tearing down the old so there is room for the new. Osteoporosis occurs
when bone is broken down faster than it is rebuilt. The reason why greater
loss occurs after menopause is that our hormones somehow block the breakdown.
That is why hormone therapy used to be recommended to help protect against
osteoporosis.

Bisphosphonate drugs, like Fosamax,
are poisons that selectively kill off osteoclasts. So they stop the bones
from tearing down the old but they don’t do anything to help build new
bone. Your bones may look denser to the testing machines but they
are dense with old bone that should have been cleared away. They are brittle,
not flexible.

An oral surgeon called a customer of mine recently to warn
her off the bisphosphonate drugs. He had been working on someone’s jaw
and it just crumbled. She had been on the drugs for four years. We may
be hearing more stories like this soon. Check the blog, there are lots
of horror stories in there.

  Natural Solutions

Bone changes don’t happen really fast. If you get onto a
program of solutions you can wait for one year and then get tested again.
If there is no actual change in the numbers, this is still an improvement.
If left untended your bones would naturally get thinner every year so
no change at all is better than that. However most of the solutions in
the following articles will produce significant improvement in bone over
a five year period, or even more if you incorporate them all gradually
into your life.

Since they are natural solutions, co-operating with
your internal health mechanisms, they will also bring unexpected improvements
in other areas, like balance and muscle strength and enjoyment of life.

So, enough with the gloomy stats.
Let’s take the positive path and  move on to the articles with solutions.
We can prevail over this and become better than ever!

Disclaimer: Nothing
on this site is to be construed as medical advice. I am not a medical
practitioner and have no ability to diagnose or treat disease. This site
is intended for informational purposes only. Everyone should make their
own health decisions after getting all the information they need.