Awareness of osteoporosis risk factors key, says expert

THE NUMBER of women who develop osteoporosis after the menopause could be reduced greatly if they were more aware of the risk factors, a world-renowned doctor in the field said at the weekend.

Dr Santiago Palacios, who is president of the European Foundation of Women and Health, told a meeting in Dublin of clinicians involved in the treatment of osteoporosis that more could be done to prevent the disease if those at risk knew how lifestyle choices such as drinking, smoking, lack of exercise and lack of calcium could increase their chances of getting the disease.

Osteoporosis is a thinning of bone tissue caused by a drop in oestrogen levels after the menopause. It mainly affects women over the age of 50, though some older men are affected by it too.

Dr Palacios said it was now safe to use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for between three and five years after the onset of the menopause to relieve the symptoms of the menopause and treat the onset of osteoporosis.

He said that targeted treatments for women with osteoporosis were making a real difference and prior clinical practice which treated all women with osteoporosis as if they were the same was inefficient.

He also suggested that new or younger post-menopausal osteoporosis patients be started on selective oestrogen receptor modulators (Serms) that reduce the risk of spinal and non-spinal fractures.

Serms are especially appropriate, he maintained, for those who do not respond to one of the traditional treatments which are called bisphosphonates, a class of drugs that prevent the loss of bone mass, used to treat osteoporosis and similar diseases. He also suggested a new monoclonal antibody called Denosumab as a potential treatment for women over the age of 70.

One in two women over the age of 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime. There are currently 300,000 people in Ireland over the age of 50 who have osteoporosis.