OSTEOPOROSIS

What is it?

Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease in which there is a decrease in bone mass density. Thus, the bones become more porous, the number and size of the cavities or cells that exist inside them increases, they are more fragile, they resist blows worse and break more easily.

Causes.

Numerous metabolic changes occur throughout life inside the bone, alternating phases of destruction and bone formation. These phases are regulated by different hormones, physical activity, diet, toxic habits and vitamin D, among other factors.

Under normal conditions, a person reaches a maximum amount of bone mass at the age of 30-35 (“bone mass peak”). From that moment on, there is a natural loss of bone mass.

Women more often have osteoporosis for several reasons: their bone mass peak is usually lower than that of men and with menopause bone loss accelerates (postmenopausal osteoporosis).

There are many other causes of osteoporosis: alcoholism, drugs (glucocorticoids, hormonal treatment used for the treatment of breast and prostate cancer…), rheumatic, endocrine, hepatic inflammatory diseases, kidney failure, among others.

Symptoms

Osteoporosis is called a silent epidemic because it does not manifest symptoms until bone loss is so important that fractures appear. The most frequent fractures are the vertebral, hip and wrist fractures (Collins fracture or distal end of the radius). The hip fracture is especially important since it is considered a serious event because it requires surgical intervention, hospital admission and means for the patient a loss of quality of life even for a short period of time.