Building Stronger Bones

One in two women and one in four men over age 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in her/his remaining lifetime. Yes, osteoporosis ("porous bones") affects men, too. Yet the advanced effects of bone loss -- a humped upper back or easily shattered limbs -- does not have to be in the future of people who eat wisely and exercise regularly.

Unlike a fingernail or your hair, bones are living tissue. They contain nerves, blood vessels, and marrow, where blood cells are created. Bones are constantly tearing down and rebuilding themselves, like a freeway construction project that never ends. Without this repair and reinforcement of even minor weak spots, we would break bones on a regular basis.

"When a person us under 20 years of age," explains Felicia Cosman, MD, medical director of the Clinical Research Center at Helen Hayes Hospital in New York and clinical director of the National Osteoporosis Foundation, "you are forming more bone cells than you are losing." But when women near menopause, rebuilding new bone slows down. A woman's bone density begins to decrease.

Bone density is measured by a painless, low-radiation X-ray, which is translated into what Cosman describes as a "sort of confusing number" called a T-score. Basically, the patient's bone density is compared to that of an average person between 20 and 30 years old -- the time of peak bone density in a woman's life.

A T-score of minus two or below should concern a 55-year-old woman, Cosman says, and might justify medication.