Osteoporosis kills

Osteoporosis is a disease that affects 80 percent of women. What needs to be improved along the line of prevention - diagnosis - treatment?

At each of these stages we have very large underperformance. Changes have not occurred for at least 10 years. On the other hand, the consequence of major neglect is unfortunately death, because osteoporosis kills. It is not a disease you can live with peacefully. The risk of death is comparable to the risk in traffic accidents or the risk of death from breast cancer in women, strokes. Therefore, we should take osteoporosis more seriously. We should make the public aware of what prevention is. And it is very simple, because it consists of changing lifestyles, i.e. more exercise, a healthy diet and performing periodic preventive examinations, which can detect early changes in our calcification. In postmenopausal women, this is because after the age of 50, our hormonal play does not protect our normal bone structure. Consequently, this is a risk. Include preventive treatment already at the stage of osteopenia and control against the risk of fractures, and if already these fractures happen, they are low-energy, that is, resulting from our fall, then we should immediately go to the osteoporosis clinic and start treatment. Because after one fracture, there is a high risk of more fractures. And then there is only death.

Why measure up?

Measuring the spine is a very simple thing. Meanwhile, we don't measure ourselves. We do it at the age of 18, when we have to enter our height in the ID card. In the course of osteoporosis, on the other hand, vertebral fractures slowly occur, which are reflected in a decrease in our height. If this height decreases more than 4 cm in our height, 99 percent of the time it is the result of osteoporosis and slow compression fracture of the vertebral bodies. So a very simple examination is needed. People who come to see their family doctor should measure themselves. Even when we come to see a friend, let's ask if she has measured herself recently. Let's check to see if our height has changed, as this could indicate osteoporosis. Then let's turn on treatment as soon as possible.