Osteoporosis is a gradual decrease in bone mass and density that
hits postmenopausal women especially hard. Though information
varies, most osteoporosis information places postmenopausal
Caucasian women at a 50 to 80 percent risk of sustaining a hip,
spine, or forearm fracture due to osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is almost entirely preventable and even reversible with
prevention and treatment measures. New research information shows
that hormone replacement therapy does not adequately protect women
from osteoporosis.
Though women often associate osteoporosis with menopause, bone loss
actually begins years before menopause. Most women reach peak bone
density at about 30 and will lose about .7 percent on their bone
density after that. Bone loss accelerates for three to five years
around the time of menopause and then continues to decline at the
rate of about 1 to1.5% per year.
Because bone loss accelerates at menopause, at the time estrogen
levels decline, conventional medicine adopted the belief that
estrogen deficiency cause osteoporosis. Following that assumption,
physicians regularly used hormone replacement therapy to prevent
osteoporosis.
However, new study information places the hormone replacement
therapy benefit to osteoporosis as myth and makes it clear that
hormone replacement therapy is not the correct course of
osteoporosis treatment.
_ The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported a
14-year study that showed no significant difference in the frequency
of hip fractures between women who used hormone replacement therapy
and those who did not use hormone replacement therapy.
_ The New England Journal of Medicine published an 8-year study
following almost 10,000 menopausal women. This study also showed no
significant difference in the frequency of hip fractures between
women who used hormone replacement therapy and those who did not use
hormone replacement therapy.
Given the serious health risks associated with estrogen and the lack
of long-term benefit, hormone replacement therapy is one of the
least appropriate osteoporosis treatment methods women should take.
Research and study information also shows that natural progesterone
- in addition to diet and lifestyle changes - provides far greater
benefit to bone health.
With osteoporosis, bone tissue dies faster than new bone tissue is
made. Over time, bones become less dense and more porous. If the
bones become too weak to support the skeleton, bones can break
easily. If frail enough, a minor fall, bump or even a hard sneeze
can cause a bone fracture.
Progesterone works to actively build new bone tissue. By supplying
the body with adequate supplies of bone-building progesterone, new
tissue can be made to replace old bone tissue. For women taking
hormone replacement therapy for the prevention of osteoporosis, this
is great news. Women no longer need to choose hormone replacement
therapy and its side effects - endometrial cancer, phlebitis, weight
gain, high blood pressure, jaundice, vaginal candidiasis,
depression, skin rashes, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, abdominal
cramps, cysts and more - to halt bone loss.
Many other factors play a significant role in osteoporosis
prevention. Caucasian women - especially those with a family history
of osteoporosis or poor diets in their younger years - are at the
greatest risk of osteoporosis after menopause. Women with poor
diets, low calcium intake, low body weight, low physical activity
and alcoholism are also at risk for osteoporosis.
You cannot change your sex, race or age but you can change other
factors that contribute to osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis Risk Factors: (Other than being a postmenopausal
woman):
Family history of osteoporosis
Caucasian
Low body weight
Early menopause Low calcium intake
Low physical activity
Cigarette smoking
Drinking more than two alcohol drinks daily
Long-term steroid therapy
Long-term anti-convulsant therapy
Drug therapy that causes dizziness
Hyperthyroidism
Coffee intake of more than two cups daily
Alcohol intake of more than two drinks daily
Regular antacid use
Early signs of osteoporosis include gradual loss of height, loose
teeth and persistent low back pain. Sudden insomnia and restlessness
and nightly leg and foot cramps are also early warning signs of
osteoporosis.
Many women are not aware that they are losing bone mass until after
a bone fracture. It behooves women of menopause age to know the
status of their bone health and use osteoporosis prevention measures
to prevent bone loss before it begins.
One way of testing bone loss is to check your height every six
months. If you start losing height, you are losing bone on your
spine. This method of checking bone loss does not give a
comprehensive profile of bone health but it does give a general
indication of bone loss.
The best way to determine bone density and fracture risk before a
fracture occurs is to have a bone mineral density (BMD) test. A bone
density test measures bone density in the spine, hip and/or wrist,
the most common sites of fractures due to osteoporosis. There are
bone density tests now available that measure bone density in the
middle finger and the heel or shinbone.
The bone density test identifies risk for fracture. The lower the
bone density, the greater the risk for fracture. The bone density
test compares a person’s bone density to the expected bone density
of a person of the same age, sex and size, along with a comparison
of bone density at the optimal peak bone density of a healthy young
adult of the same sex.
Hospitals and imaging centers offer bone density tests. There are
many different bone density test methods. All are painless and
noninvasive. The dual energy X-ray absorptiometry is one of the best
scanning techniques that offers accuracy and minimal radiation
exposure.
Women should have a bone density test performed as they enter
menopause. The early bone density test serves as baseline
information to compare against future bone density tests.
Many experts recommend having a second bone density test 12 to 24
months after starting an osteoporosis prevention regime to make sure
the protective program is working. After that, additional tests
aren't needed unless lifestyle or other health conditions change.
Women taking hormone replacement therapy for osteoporosis prevention
should use the bone density test to verify that hormone replacement
therapy is indeed providing positive benefit to bone health. If bone
loss continues while using hormone replacement therapy - and studies
show that it likely will - women should change their osteoporosis
prevention regime to one that will provide better results.
Research shows that osteoporosis prevention measures of a healthy
calcium-rich diet, exercise and progesterone work better than using
hormone replacement therapy.
