Osteoporosis in women: why does it appear and how to fight it?

First, it is necessary to understand what the disease is and what are the risks of osteoporosis in women (this is the main risk group).

Only after this it will be possible to determine the treatment.

Osteoporosis is a metabolic disease of the skeleton, characterized by a decrease in its level of strength and an increased risk of fracture. This is one of the most important problems, common not only in Russia, but all over the world.

A WHO survey found that such a disease is often detected in people older than fifty years, predominantly in the female (33% versus 24% in men). More than 10 million people have faced such a problem.

What can cause osteoporosis?

This disease is multifactorial.

To make it possible, the following non-modifiable risk factors should work:

• low BMD;
• belonging to the female sex;
• age over 65 years;
• family history of a disease or fracture, when relatives (age over 50 years) have a low degree of injury.
• past fractures;
• hypogonadism in representatives of female and male;
• reception of glucocorticoids;
• early (also surgical) female menopause;
• other diseases that can cause osteoporosis;
• immobilization for a long time.

The following factors are classified as modifiable:

• insufficient physical activity;
• bad habits: smoking, alcohol abuse;
• Low BMI: with weight, below 57kg - 20kg per square. m.
• insufficient reception of Vitamin D, Ca (calcium) by the body;
• tendency to stumble and fall.

Symptoms of osteoporosis in women

Most likely, it proceeds without the appearance of any symptoms, and the first external manifestation can only become a fracture that occurred with minor trauma. These include those that occurred spontaneously or when a person fell from a height not exceeding its value growth, as well as fractures that occurred when coughing, sneezing, or just a sharp movement, such as, for example, opening windows.

Fracture with minor (minimal) injuries additionally means a situation where using an X-ray the doctor diagnosed a vertebral compression fracture in the patient, even if the symptoms of compression are absent at all.

Bone fractures can occur in any part of the body, and the most typical for the female sex in postmenopausal period are fractures of the vertebrae in the chest and lower back, as well as the radius in the distal section. With senile osteoporosis - the femur (proximal part), with glucocorticoid - a large number of compression fractures of vertebral bodies, with hyperparathyroid - tubular bones.

Fracture of the vertebra in any of the above areas can be expressed by a decrease in growth or through an increase in the thoracic kyphosis.

In addition to these signs of osteoporosis in women, there may be an acute or chronic form of spinal pain, decreased abdominal volume, decreased ability to work and take care of themselves, increased mortality.

In addition, the presence of osteoporosis can be determined if a person's growth has decreased in one year more than by a centimeter, or by 4 for all lived time.

Possible methods of diagnosis and treatment

Diagnosis of the disease can be done using:

• biopsy research
• clinical (anamnesis - collection: interview, objective examination with a specialist, physical examination) method;
• radiation (radiograph, tomograph, densitometer) diagnostics;
• biochemical methods.

The first method involves focusing on the risk factors associated with osteoporosis. It can be suspected through anthropometry of early measurements of the length of the spine with the current.

Due to radiography, it is possible to identify the initial stage, as it is visually conspicuous on the radiograph (only with a decrease in a quarter or more of bone tissue density).

Early osteoporosis can be detected with the help of tomography using computer technology or magnetic resonance tomograph, if the density of bone tissue was reduced only in some places, called foci, spongy bone. This kind of disease is called spotted.

To biochemical methods aimed at determining violations of bone-tissue metabolism belong:

• metabolism;
• resorption of bone tissue and forming markers;
• hormones.

The first is the definition of the daily volume of excretion of Ca and P elements, and their presence in the blood (the designation of the exact level of content), including. vitamin D, calcitonin and parathyroid hormone.

The second variant means alkaline and acidic phosphatases. Of particular importance are the results obtained in the dynamics.

If there is no particular suspicion of severe forms of the disease, usually X-ray absorptiometry is prescribed, the procedure lasts no more than 15 minutes and is completely painless.

Exercises, medications and vitamins for osteoporosis in women

For therapy distinguish several groups of drugs.

Means that exert a multifaceted impact on bone-tissue metabolism:

• vitamins D and D3, calcium or a combination of 1000mg and 700ME or 1200mg and 800ME (daily dose recommended for calcium g);
• Osteohin, which is taken for a long time (the reason for this is a slowly increasing effect);
• Hydroxyapatite, as well as ossein protein, which do not have contraindications and inhibit osseoclasts and stimulate osteoblasts.

Means with a depressant effect (with regard to bone resorption):

• Raloxifene (belongs to the estrogens used in the case of substitution therapy in the postmenopausal period).
• Calcitonin (it should not be taken to women during pregnancy, as it lowers calcium levels in the blood).
• Etidronate, Ibandronate (bisphosphonates, slowing bone mineralization).

Drugs that stimulate bone formation:

• Teriparatide (parathyroid hormone), accelerating remodeling of bone tissue;
• Fluoride salts and Growth hormone (for elderly people).

In a set of exercises for osteoporosis in women includes physical exercises that exert a load on the bone. It can be ordinary walking or climbing stairs. But such exercises do not include swimming, since it is not associated with such loads.

Prevention of osteoporosis in old age, with menopause or menopause

The first protective line is an increase in the amount of calcium in the blood.

The best source is milk or cottage cheese (also other dairy products), green vegetables (lettuce, parsley, green and onion), you can eat beans, nuts, fish and citrus fruits fruit.

Help to avoid the disease full sleep, and maintaining the amount of vitamin D, maintaining body weight with an index not exceeding 19 kg / m2.

Prevention through the adoption of medicines is strictly regulated by the presence of risk factors according to a special risk scale.