How to Assess Bone Health

Between the age of 20 and 30, people begin losing more bone density and mass than they grow, and this process speeds up as they age. As a result, many people are at risk of developing brittle bones (osteoporosis) that can fracture easily, especially later in life. There are no symptoms to signal who has this condition. But family history, lifestyle and some medical conditions and medications can help to predict who may be at risk. An online questionnaire can help assess the risk of developing weak bones.

Instructions

Risk Factors

• 1

  People lose and replace bone tissue throughout their lives, but in healthy people the pace of growth increases until age 20 to 30. Thereafter, people begin losing more bone than they grow, and this speeds up with age. In many people this leads to osteoporosis, with bones so brittle that they break easily and might not heal properly. The condition can also cause multi-bone (skeletal) abnormalities that distort posture, restrict range of motion and affect balance.

• 2

  Older white and Asian women are considered most likely to develop osteoporosis, because menopause reduces their ability to produce the bone-protecting hormone estrogen. But the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, among other sources, reports that men older than 60, and especially over 80, are also vulnerable. African-American women are at lower risk because they tend to have denser bones.

• 3

  Know your family history. People are more likely to develop osteoporosis if they have relatives who developed the condition or if they have suffered broken bones themselves.

• 4

  Assess your lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor because regular weight-bearing exercise is a major way of strengthening bones. Smoking or drinking to excess; high consumption of caffeine, soft drinks and protein; and deficiencies in calcium, vitamin D, phosphorous and other essentials also increase a person's risk of developing osteoporosis.

• 5

  Look at other health factors. A broad range of pre-existing conditions increase the risk of developing osteoporosis. They include asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, eating disorders, gluten intolerance, organ transplants and low body weight or significant weight loss.

• 6

  Get screened for osteoporosis once every few years if you're a post-menopausal woman or an and older man, recommend the National Osteoporosis Society, the Mayo Clinic, and other experts.

  The most commonly performed test is dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DXA, of the large bones in the hip and spine, because these bones and those in the wrist are most at risk of breakage and can take longer than others to heal. But the presence of fat around the bone being scanned can skew the results. Although many physicians believe that other screening methods are equivalent to DXA, some research published in the July/August 2005 issue of The Endocrinologist journal indicates that quantitative computed tomography is more accurate. People should check with their doctors if they think they might need a bone mass/density scan.

• 7

  Answer the online questionnaire of the National Institute of Arthritis and Muscoskeletal and Skin Diseases. This questionnaire, which is designed to help assess the risk of developing osteoporosis, is at http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Bone/Optool/index.asp.