Sometimes the hardest part about surviving a stroke is the difficult weeks and months of recovery that follow.
Whether you’re suffering from partial paralysis, or are just a little wobblier on your feet, the threat of a fall and a potentially serious fracture loom large over stroke survivors.
Well, some new help Continue reading
Kaiser Permanente study suggests significant height loss may indicate more serious health problems Continue reading
For countless years, natural health advocates, who suggested caution at the near hysterical and highly advertised push to put women on anti-osteoporosis prescription drugs, were looked at as unscientific health “nuts”. But now some mainstream scientists are in total agreement and are even sounding the alarm about those medications. Instead of popping side effect loaded pills, say University of Illinois (U of I) researchers, an effective first course of action to keep bones strong should be to simply increase calcium in your diet and vitamin D or take calcium and vitamin D supplements.
But, you may say, you just had a bone density scan and your doctor claims your score shows you are at high risk for the bone-robbing condition known as osteoporosis. Shouldn’t you follow your physician’s dictate to start taking a widely advertised bone-building prescription medication? Continue reading
We all know an older person with osteoporosis — it’s one of the most common problems of aging, striking more than half of all adults over age 50. And we all hope osteoporosis doesn’t happen to us, since weak bones can lead to fractures, and fractures, in turn, lead to all sorts of scary consequences.
But how do you know if your bones are sturdy enough to keep you safe? It’s tricky, because osteopenia — the process of bone thinning that precedes full-blown osteoporosis — can happen without obvious symptoms. Here are the top 10 warning signs of thinning bones, along with tips about how you can respond:
1. You’ve had more Continue reading
Osteoporosis is a serious and disabling condition that affects around 2 million Australians. Someone is admitted to hospital with an osteoporotic fracture every 5-6 minutes, averaging 262 hospitalizations each day. It has already been shown by Garvan and others that osteoporotic fractures increase a person’s risk of dying, even after relatively minor fractures if that person is elderly.
“Osteoporosis is a big societal burden and remains a poorly understood and severely undertreated disease in Australia,” said Eisman.
“Only about 30% of women and 10% of men with osteoporosis receive treatment, which is unacceptable when you consider that people could be helped, and death could be delayed by several years. There is good evidence – even without this study – that treating osteoporosis reduces fractures and reduces mortality.”
“While osteoporosis is clearly under-recognized and under-treated, the findings of this study are important to better understanding the benefits of these treatments and may directly influence doctors’ practice. It was unexpected and remarkable to find that not only osteoporosis but also life expectancy appear to be improved for people taking bisphosphonates,” said Dr Christine Bennett, Chair of the Bupa Health Foundation Steering Committee and Bupa Australia’s Chief Medical Officer.
“Bupa Health Foundation is proud to have supported this valuable research since 2005 and we see its findings as a major breakthrough that can now guide doctors’ treatment decisions for these very vulnerable older people.”
Like any pharmaceutical product, bisphosphonates may have unpredictable side effects in a small minority of people and should only be used for their approved purpose.
*Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study
The Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study is an ongoing population-based study that started in 1989 in Dubbo, a city with a population of 32,000 in regional New South Wales. The study cohort is women (1223) and men (898) over the age of 60. Approximately 60% of eligible people were recruited into the study.
Acknowledgements And Disclosure Summary
This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council Australia, The Bupa Health Foundation, the Ernst Heine Foundation, and untied grants from Amgen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Sanofi- Aventis, Servier and Novartis. There was no financial compensation paid to any of the participants in the study. The study sponsors had no role in the study design, nor the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data.