Like high blood pressure and diabetes this disease too strikes silently. What’s worse, every third post-menopausal woman has osteoporosis and half of these women are likely to have fractures of bones. The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research recently organized a seminar on osteoporosis and part of it were doctors from around the world and from India, renowned endocrinologist, Dr K P Singh, presented a paper on nutritional and metabolic bone disease, an Asian perspective. “In one of our biggest studies on 15,000 Indian women, we observed bone mineral density is high in women who are labourers, despite dietary calcium deficiency,” explains the doc, who adds that the condition leads to reduction in the density of bone and also quality of bone. The result of weak bones are fractures of spines, hip and wrists. Bone, explains Dr Singh, is the most active organ in the body and old bones are remodelled, with nearly 20 per cent of the bone being renewed. The most important cause is loss of estrogen at the time of menopause, dietary calcium deficIency and less Vitamin D. Negative balance in the bone leads to thin bones or porus, “it can all lead to serious disabilities and also complications, occasionally becoming life-threatening. “The latest by WHO is the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool, a questionnaire, which can give us a fair indication of who is or can be more prone to the disease,’’ the doc says people who smoke, consume alcohol, have low body weight are more prone to the disease.

Nods Dr Gaurav Swahney, an orthopaedician, who says the Dexa Bone Density Metre is a gold standard standard for assessing bone density of hip and spine and is non-invasive too. “Bone deposits occur by the age of 35, so a calcium rich diet, regular exercise like running, jogging, cycling, swimming are vital to prevent the disease, as well as getting adequate Vitamin D and sunlight.’’