MAKING A NOISE ABOUT THE SILENT DISEASE- OSTEOPOROSIS

The origin of the word 'osteoporosis' begins to explain the condition - 'osteo' is for bones and 'porosis' means porous, resulting in weakness.

Osteoporosis is of particular interest to post menopausal women, but the bone condition also affects other groups of people.

Osteoporosis is called the “Silent Disease" because bone is lost with no signs. You may not know that you have osteoporosis until a strain, bump, or fall causes a bone to break.

Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones, characterized by decadence of bone structure, increasing brittleness of bones, also increasing the risks of fractures. It is the chief cause of bone fractures in aged people. It is a growing problem affecting women in particular. It is one of the common diseases in our country affecting mostly women of 45-54 age groups. As soon as the woman of our country crosses 40 she starts complaining about bone aches. Poor literacy rates coupled with lack of awareness of the risk factors is the major cause of the increase in Osteoporosis in Pakistan. Better knowledge about this disease can contribute a lot for its prevention.

Various risk factors for osteoporosis have been determined. These include; Calcium and Vitamin D deficiency, advancing age, early menopause in women, smoking, excessive intake of caffeine, family history of osteoporosis, lack of physical exercise, prolonged lactation, low body weight, etc. It is a major cause of wrist and hip bone fractures in elderly, resulting in disability and severe pain. Diet low in calcium and Vitamin D cause bone fragility leading to bone fractures.

This is a modern era, people like to watch movies on T.V, prefer playing games on computers rather than taking part in physical games. They prefer cold drinks, chocolates, junk food instead of taking proper nutritious diet.

Mostly, Pakistani women keep themselves busy with household chores, pay no attention in taking proper nutritious diet and ignore their health issues, as a result they easily fall prey to this disease. Pakistan is a conservative country where on average every woman gives birth to five children at least, these women lose a lot of calcium during lactation, but don't replace it accordingly, as a result become nutritionally-deprived.

            

A recent study reveals that in Pakistan more than 6 million people are suffering from osteoporosis and if proper measures are not taken this figure might increase to an alarming extent in coming years.

If dire actions are not taken to control this disease, then a huge proportion of young Pakistani women will suffer from osteoporosis in the future causing burden on the health resources.

     NORMAL V.S OESTOPOROTIC BONE

Preventive habits that can help in fighting against osteoporosis include; physical exercise on a daily basis, taking proper diet that is rich in Calcium and Vitamin-D (like fresh leafy vegetables, fish, milk etc.), abeyance of smoking and also controlling caffeine consumption. Giving awareness about this disease through health education programs will reduce risks of osteoporosis and will prevent the development of the disease.                

Developing countries like Pakistan continue to be unprepared to handle the burden of the ailment. This, coupled with lack of education and awareness of the risk factors and symptoms of osteoporosis ends up with poor results.

Osteoporosis may have its roots in childhood and adolescence, which is the period when your body does the most bone building. Women reach their peak bone mass, at about age 18. After that, women continue to build small amounts of bone mass. By 30, your bones are fully stocked, and although your body will continue to replace old bone cells, there will be no increase in bone mass past that point.

Add osteoporosis to the long list of health issues, like mood swings and migraines that you can blame on your hormones. Although there are other possible genetic and environmental factors behind bone loss, your body's changing levels of estrogen remains the most culpable suspect.

Estrogen is a hormone that helps regulate a woman’s reproductive cycle. At the same time, it plays a role in keeping bones strong and healthy in women. While pre menopausal women have more estrogen, women will experience dramatic drops in estrogen production due to menopause, and are more likely to experience bone loss and osteoporosis at that time.

Women are at increased osteoporosis risk related to estrogen levels if they:

·         Experience irregular or infrequent periods, or began having their periods at a later than normal age.

·         Have had their ovaries removed (at any age).

·         Are going through menopause, with those undergoing menopause at an early age, having an even higher risk.

However, Osteoporosis have even been linked with an increased risk of death. Some 20% of women with a hip fracture will die in the subsequent year as an indirect result of the fracture. In addition, once a person has experienced a spine fracture due to osteoporosis, he or she is at very high risk of suffering another such fracture in the near future (next few years). About 20% of postmenopausal women who experience a vertebral fracture will suffer a new vertebral fracture of bone in the following year.

Moreover, every year there are more than 230,000 fractures due to osteoporosis, with 70,000 hip fractures, 50,000 wrist fractures and 120,000 vertebral fractures. 

According to a recent study, women with higher socioeconomic status have considerably better awareness and knowledge of osteoporosis than women with a low socioeconomic status, regardless of age. Hence, to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, prevention awareness programs must be organized to spread the awareness on this issue on the grass - root level and save the women from this life-threatening disease.

The knowledge of osteoporosis among women is very limited and the information is poorly internalized.

Therefore, to prevent the disease, you must fully understand osteoporosis concerning the risk factors and preventive behaviors.

Thus, studies indicate that knowledge of risk factors and treatment for osteoporosis is a primary contributor to osteoporosis preventive behavior. Osteoporosis is considered as “The Silent Thief” as you age. Hence, it is concluded that through proper medication, physical measures like physiotherapy, exercise, physical rehabilitation, education, public health programs, osteoporosis prevention programs, this disease can be controlled.

By: Shanza Sahar, karachi.