Osteoporosis
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40 free Osteoporosis trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Osteoporosis thins the skeleton so gradually that most people never notice it happening. Bone is living tissue, broken down and rebuilt throughout life, and when removal outpaces renewal the result is a frame that can break under a strain a healthy one would shrug off. It affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, most of them older women, though men and younger people are not exempt. This quiz covers how bone is built and lost, the foods, hormones and habits that strengthen or weaken it, the breaks the condition most often causes, and the tests and medicines doctors rely on. It also takes in the history of the disease, a few well-known people who have campaigned about it, and some surprising lessons from sport, space and the animal world. The questions range from easy to challenging, so they suit families, students and classrooms as well as nursing or medical revision, and anyone who has been told to look after their bones. Every answer comes with a short explanation. It is a quiz for learning, not a substitute for medical advice.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which professionals lose more than 1% of their bone mass every month they spend at work?
Astronauts
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.
Q 02Which animals lie inactive for months each winter yet lose no bone mass, a puzzle for osteoporosis researchers?
Bears
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.
Q 03Which British royal became president of the Royal Osteoporosis Society after her mother died of the disease?
Queen Camilla
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.
Q 04Which two-time Oscar winner, diagnosed with osteoporosis in 2005, fronted a campaign for the drug Boniva?
Sally Field
Sally Field launched Rally with Sally for Bone Health after her diagnosis. She won her Oscars for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart.
Q 05Which athletes build stronger bones in one arm than the other, a textbook example of Wolff's law?
Tennis players
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.
Q 06Which nickname do doctors give osteoporosis because it usually causes no symptoms until a bone breaks?
The silent disease
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.
Q 07Which mineral, about 99% of which is locked away in the skeleton, do bones need to stay dense?
Calcium
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.
Q 08Which nutrient, made in the skin when sunlight strikes it, helps the gut absorb the minerals bones need?
Vitamin D
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.
Q 09Humans have lighter, less dense bones than other primates, a trade-off scientists link to which human trait?
Walking upright
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.
Q 10Which popular exercise loads the skeleton so lightly that it does little to slow age-related bone loss?
Swimming
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.
Q 11The medical word osteoporosis is built from Greek terms that together carry which literal meaning?
Porous bone
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.
Q 12A broken hip, the gravest fracture linked to osteoporosis, is a break at the top of which part of the skeleton?
Thigh bone
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.
Q 13Which hormone, whose levels fall sharply at menopause, normally slows the breakdown of bone in women?
Estrogen
Q 21Which protein, the most abundant in mammals, gives bone the flexibility that helps it resist fracture?
Collagen
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.
Q 22Long-term use of which class of drugs, which includes prednisone, is a classic medical cause of osteoporosis?
Steroids
Steroids such as prednisone mainly thin the bones of the trunk, and guidelines advise protective treatment once a course runs past about three months.
Q 23Which eating disorder, the deadliest psychiatric diagnosis, counts osteoporosis among its medical complications?
Anorexia nervosa
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.
Q 14Unlike osteoporosis, which thins bone, osteoarthritis mainly wears away which tissue inside the joints?
Cartilage
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.
Q 15Which childhood disease leaves bones soft rather than thin and classically causes bowed legs?
Rickets
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.
Q 16Which Chinese martial art is recommended to older adults because it improves balance and helps prevent falls?
Tai chi
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.
Q 17At which stage of life does the human skeleton reach its peak bone mass, the reserve it draws on later?
Early adulthood
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.
Q 18A Colles' fracture, common in osteoporosis after a fall onto an outstretched hand, breaks which part of the body?
Wrist
Wrist fractures of this kind are named after Abraham Colles, the Irish surgeon who described the injury in 1814, long before X-rays existed.
Q 19A drop in which routine measurement, caused by slowly collapsing vertebrae, can be a sign of osteoporosis?
Height
Height shrinks as weakened spinal bones compress, often without any pain. Only about a third of these fractures are ever recognized.
Q 20Which forward curve of the upper spine, nicknamed dowager's hump, is a visible sign of advanced osteoporosis?
Kyphosis
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.
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.
Q 24Which gland, when overactive, can cause osteoporosis along with weight loss and a racing heartbeat?
Thyroid
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.
Q 25Which test, using two X-ray beams of different energies, is the most widely used way to measure bone density?
DEXA scan
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.
Q 26Which result on a bone density report is −2.5 or lower in a person with osteoporosis?
T-score
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.
Q 27Which bone cells, whose name comes from the Greek for 'broken', dissolve old bone so it can be replaced?
Osteoclasts
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.
Q 28Which class of drugs, the most commonly prescribed for osteoporosis, includes alendronate, sold as Fosamax?
Bisphosphonates
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.
Q 29Which term for bone density that is low but short of osteoporosis comes from the Greek for 'bone poverty'?
Osteopenia
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.
Q 30Which tissue, found at the ends of long bones, is degraded most when osteoporosis upsets the skeleton's renewal?
Spongy bone
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.