Osteoporosis is often considered a woman’s disease. But bone-health experts are making a new push to focus on controlling the bone-wasting disease in men, who also suffer.
The National Bone Health Alliance, a public-private partnership managed by the nonprofit National Osteoporosis Foundation, is completing a year-long pilot project at three hospitals to test programs that make bone-density tests routine for patients over 50 with fractures, the
Wall Street Journal reports.
Such tests are recommended by various medical groups, but experts say the majority of patients in the U.S., especially men, don’t get tested for osteoporosis after suffering a fracture to the wrist, vertebrae, or other bones not caused by an accident or trauma.
Doctors call this a “fragility fracture” —one that results from a decrease in bone density.
A recent study of about 440 people found women were about three times as likely as men to be tested using a bone-density scan after suffering a broken wrist — a common warning sign of early osteoporosis. The study, conducted by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, was published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, spotlights the need to focus more on men with osteoporosis.
A many as one in four men in the U.S. over the age of 50 will break a bone as a result of the condition, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation. By comparison, one out of two women will break a bone from osteoporosis.
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