How to Prevent Osteoporosis
and 2 Million Broken Bones!
Article by Andrea Singer, MD, Special to Everyday Health
Each year, more than 60,000 women die from the effects of osteoporosis, a disease of the bones that causes low bone density and weak bones that are more likely to break. That’s 20,000 more deaths than are caused by breast cancer and cervical cancer combined.
Despite these numbers, many Americans don’t take precautions against this potentially life-altering disease. In an April 2016 Harris Poll survey on osteoporosis, three-quarters of Americans said they were aware of the effects that osteoporosis can have on their health, yet only about half reported taking steps to prevent it.
As clinical director of the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), I spend a great deal of time spreading awareness of this “silent epidemic.” Osteoporosis often goes unnoticed until it’s too late and a man or woman suffers a painful, life-changing fracture.
Osteoporosis leads to a surprising number of hospitalizations. Osteoporosis causes two million broken bones in the United States each year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services’ Bone Health and Osteoporosis: A Report of the Surgeon General, from 2004. And each year, these bone breaks from osteoporosis result in:
• Half a million hospitalizations
• 800,000 emergency room visits
• 2.6 million trips to the doctor
• 180,000 people being placed into nursing homes
Even more shocking, between 2000 and 2011, 4.9 million women over age 55 were hospitalized for osteoporotic
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