40 Fun Facts About Osteoporosis

Which professionals lose more than 1% of their bone mass every month they spend at work?

Astronauts shed bone in orbit because weightless bones carry no load. Crews on the Mir station lost 1–2% a month, about what an older adult on Earth loses in a year.

Which animals lie inactive for months each winter yet lose no bone mass, a puzzle for osteoporosis researchers?

Bears wake from hibernation with bone mass unchanged, pointing to a built-in mechanism that protects the skeleton. In people, long spells of inactivity thin the bones.

Which British royal became president of the Royal Osteoporosis Society after her mother died of the disease?

Queen Camilla joined the charity in 1994, the year her mother Rosalind died of osteoporosis, and became its president in 2001. Her first public speech was at an osteoporosis conference.

Which two-time Oscar winner, diagnosed with osteoporosis in 2005, fronted a campaign for the drug Boniva?

Sally Field launched Rally with Sally for Bone Health after her diagnosis. She won her Oscars for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart.

Which athletes build stronger bones in one arm than the other, a textbook example of Wolff's law?

Tennis players load their racquet arm so heavily, above all when serving, that its bones strengthen. Wolff's law says bone adapts to the loads placed on it.

Which nickname do doctors give osteoporosis because it usually causes no symptoms until a bone breaks?

The silent disease earns its name because bone loss cannot be felt. Many people learn they have osteoporosis only after breaking a bone in a minor fall.

Which mineral, about 99% of which is locked away in the skeleton, do bones need to stay dense?

Calcium is the most plentiful metal in the human body, and bone acts as its storehouse. When the blood runs short, hormones order the skeleton to release some.

Which nutrient, made in the skin when sunlight strikes it, helps the gut absorb the minerals bones need?

Vitamin D is unusual among vitamins because most people get more of it from sunshine on their skin than from food. Ultraviolet B rays trigger its production.

Humans have lighter, less dense bones than other primates, a trade-off scientists link to which human trait?

Walking upright puts the body's whole weight on two limbs, and a lighter skeleton is easier to carry. The price is more osteoporosis than other primates suffer.

Which popular exercise loads the skeleton so lightly that it does little to slow age-related bone loss?

Swimming lets water carry the body's weight, so bones miss the stress that prompts them to strengthen. Jumping and resistance training do far more.

The medical word osteoporosis is built from Greek terms that together carry which literal meaning?

Porous bone is the literal meaning of the Greek. Under a microscope healthy bone looks like a honeycomb, and in osteoporosis its holes grow much larger.

A broken hip, the gravest fracture linked to osteoporosis, is a break at the top of which part of the skeleton?

Thigh bone, or femur, snaps at its narrow neck just below the ball of the hip joint. About one in five older patients dies within a year of the break.

Which hormone, whose levels fall sharply at menopause, normally slows the breakdown of bone in women?

Estrogen restrains the cells that dissolve bone, so its decline makes the first few years after menopause the fastest spell of bone loss in a woman's life.

Unlike osteoporosis, which thins bone, osteoarthritis mainly wears away which tissue inside the joints?

Cartilage is the smooth cushion on the ends of bones, and losing it leaves joints painful and stiff. Osteoporosis, by contrast, hurts only once a bone has broken.

Which childhood disease leaves bones soft rather than thin and classically causes bowed legs?

Rickets softens growing bones, most often because a child gets too little sunshine or a poor diet. The matching condition in adults is called osteomalacia.

Which Chinese martial art is recommended to older adults because it improves balance and helps prevent falls?

Tai chi cut the number of older people who fell by about a fifth in pooled trials. Fewer falls mean fewer fractures for anyone whose bones have grown fragile.

At which stage of life does the human skeleton reach its peak bone mass, the reserve it draws on later?

Early adulthood is when bone mass tops out, in the early 20s for women and the late 20s for men. Exercise during the growing years can raise that peak.

A Colles' fracture, common in osteoporosis after a fall onto an outstretched hand, breaks which part of the body?

Wrist fractures of this kind are named after Abraham Colles, the Irish surgeon who described the injury in 1814, long before X-rays existed.

A drop in which routine measurement, caused by slowly collapsing vertebrae, can be a sign of osteoporosis?

Height shrinks as weakened spinal bones compress, often without any pain. Only about a third of these fractures are ever recognized.

Which forward curve of the upper spine, nicknamed dowager's hump, is a visible sign of advanced osteoporosis?

Kyphosis develops as weakened vertebrae collapse into wedge shapes, tipping the upper back forward. A severe curve can press on the organs and hinder breathing.

Which protein, the most abundant in mammals, gives bone the flexibility that helps it resist fracture?

Collagen fibers make up 90 to 95% of bone's organic matrix, the springy framework that minerals harden around. Bone built without that give would be far more brittle.

Long-term use of which class of drugs, which includes prednisone, is a classic medical cause of osteoporosis?

Steroids such as prednisone mainly thin the bones of the trunk, and guidelines advise protective treatment once a course runs past about three months.

Which eating disorder, the deadliest psychiatric diagnosis, counts osteoporosis among its medical complications?

Anorexia nervosa starves the skeleton in the very years it should be banking bone. It often stops menstrual periods too, which adds to the loss.

Which gland, when overactive, can cause osteoporosis along with weight loss and a racing heartbeat?

Thyroid overactivity left untreated for years can thin the skeleton. Taking too large a dose of replacement thyroid hormone has a similar effect on bone.

Which test, using two X-ray beams of different energies, is the most widely used way to measure bone density?

DEXA scan is short for dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Bone and soft tissue absorb the two beams differently, which lets the machine single out the bone.

Which result on a bone density report is −2.5 or lower in a person with osteoporosis?

T-score counts how many standard deviations a patient's bone density lies from a healthy reference group. A World Health Organization study group set the cut-off.

Which bone cells, whose name comes from the Greek for 'broken', dissolve old bone so it can be replaced?

Osteoclasts are giant cells with several nuclei that eat away old bone. Osteoporosis sets in when they outpace the cells that lay down new bone.

Which class of drugs, the most commonly prescribed for osteoporosis, includes alendronate, sold as Fosamax?

Bisphosphonates slow bone loss by prompting the cells that digest bone to die off. Patients must sit or stand for at least half an hour after a tablet to protect the gullet.

Which term for bone density that is low but short of osteoporosis comes from the Greek for 'bone poverty'?

Osteopenia was defined by the World Health Organization in 1992. One expert who helped set the threshold said it was only meant to flag an emerging problem.

Which tissue, found at the ends of long bones, is degraded most when osteoporosis upsets the skeleton's renewal?

Spongy bone is a lattice of thin struts with a large surface, so the cells that remodel the skeleton work on it most. Its struts thin, crack and disconnect.

A rare side effect of long-term osteoporosis drugs is the death of bone tissue in which part of the body?

Jaw osteonecrosis, in which a patch of bone dies and fails to heal, is mostly seen after high-dose infusions given to cancer patients. With osteoporosis tablets the risk is tiny.

Ultrasound screening for osteoporosis, a radiation-free test, is most often done on which part of the skeleton?

Heel bone, or calcaneus, is chosen because it is flat-sided and rich in the fast-changing tissue that shows bone loss first. The machines cost far less than X-ray scanners.

Which leafy green is so high in oxalates that the gut may absorb little of its bone-building mineral content?

Spinach oxalates can bind minerals in the stomach and small intestine before the body takes them up. Blanching the leaves lowers the oxalate level.

People who cannot digest which sugar may develop osteoporosis because of the foods they have to avoid?

Lactose is the sugar in milk, so people who cannot digest it often cut out dairy, which is rich in the minerals bones are built from. A milk allergy carries the same risk.

Bones weakened by severe osteoporosis can break during which everyday action, with no fall or blow involved?

Coughing, bending over and lifting are all ordinary actions that can break a bone once the skeleton is fragile enough. Healthy bone would shrug off the same strain.

Which Strasbourg pathologist, who founded a pathology museum there in 1813, coined the term osteoporosis?

Jean Lobstein also described the inherited brittle-bone disorder now called osteogenesis imperfecta type I, sometimes known as Lobstein's disease.

Which American endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital linked osteoporosis to the years after menopause?

Fuller Albright also described the bone disorder behind McCune–Albright syndrome and worked out the mechanism of Cushing's syndrome.

Which tool, developed at the University of Sheffield, estimates a person's ten-year risk of breaking a bone?

FRAX asks about age, sex, smoking, drinking and whether a parent broke a hip, then returns a percentage. A bone density reading can be added but is not required.

Which mineral crystal, also the main ingredient of tooth enamel, makes up about 70% of bone by weight?

Hydroxyapatite gives bone its hardness, while protein fibers supply the give. Osteoporosis leaves less of both, arranged in a thinner and more open structure.

World Osteoporosis Day, marked every 20 October, is run by a foundation with headquarters in which country?

Switzerland hosts the International Osteoporosis Foundation in the town of Nyon. The foundation was formed in 1998 by merging a European body with an international federation.