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No plans for osteoporosis

Posted on October 20th, 2009 in Uncategorized skin disease

Osteoporosis is a silent disease that affects one in three women and one in twelve men, according to statistics from the World Health Organization.

The commemoration of the International Osteoporosis Day October 20 each for disseminating information about the disease and promote prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this disease worldwide.

The International Anti Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF by its initials in English) last year launched a campaign which will run until 2010, called “Your bones do not speak, speak for them,” which seeks to create a change in health policy on the disease.

According to William Henderson, secretary of the Venezuelan Association of Menopause and Osteoporosis (SOVEMA), in Bolivar state there are no programs to combat this evil, but admitted that the condition is recognized as a public health problem.

He claimed that “most people with this disease are treated in private health facilities, at the suggestion of doctors, or when they have serious problems.”

The disease
According to Herrera, osteoporosis strikes people who have lost bone mineral density leading to an alteration of the microstructure of bone and its strength.

He explained that this loss is a consequence of a normal metabolic process in the body. “The bones have two cells, ones that build, and others that decalcification, these are the osteoclasts that eat the old bone and osteoblasts that renew that bone, so that creates a new bone structure, this renewal of bone, on the contrary of what is thought to imagine it as a static body still serving only cold basement for insertion there muscles and other organs, has a high metabolism that are constantly renewing itself, building itself.

Herrera noted that between 20 and 30 years establishing a balance between these processes and is there when it reaches the highest peak and thereafter begins to “soften and lose bone mineral density, which translates into a loss of bone microarchitecture, which results in fractures, not strong impacts, but by slight impact on healthy bone should not transcend.

Diagnosis
The diagnosis of this disease is hampered by the absence of a symptom picture to detect and attack, making it presents a disadvantage when it comes to detect, so the only way to determine it is performing a bone density test or already has fracture occurred.

Bone densitometry measures the density has been lost and, according to Herrera, “must be done in a axial, that is to be measured at the lumbar spine and the upper end of femur”.

He dismissed the effectiveness of peripheral densitometry, commonly performed in public sessions, arguing that this is evidence that “serve only to screening for the disease, has no diagnostic value, much less a value to indicate treatment.”

Multiple factors
The specialist described the disease in two types, primary, which appears with the passing of time, with greater incidence in women and especially in postmenopausal women, primarily caused by lack of estrogen, coupled with other risk factors such as lack of physical exercises or sedentary lifestyle, heredity. “The race, Caucasian or Asian person they have much higher risk than those with dark skin, eating habits.

On the other hand, the secondary is one that is always accompanied by other types of disease and is linked to drugs that are supplied on the basis of these diseases, including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.