Beef up those bones

If you are a post-menopausal female, or an adult older than 40 who has recently experienced an unusual bone fracture or break, there is a quick and inexpensive medical screening for osteoporosis that you should look into.

Osteoporosis is common in older adults, especially post-menopausal Caucasian and Asian women. The disease involves a gradual loss of calcium and structural changes that cause bones, which are living tissue, to become more fragile and likely to break.

The outpatient screening, called a “DEXA,” or “DXA,” is more enhanced than a typical X-Ray. It uses dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, or bone densitometry, to measure bone loss. The machine sends a beam of low-dose X-rays with two distinct energy peaks through the bones. One peak is absorbed by soft tissue and the other by bone. The soft tissue amount can be subtracted from the total and what remains is a patient’s bone mineral density.

“If you have osteoporosis, then the creation of new bone isn’t keeping up with the removal of old bone, so your peak bone mass is decreasing,” Dr. Robert Goodman, a board-certified internal medicine and rheumatology physician with the Arthritis and Rheumatology Clinic of Shreveport, said.

“Essentially, it’s a thinning of the bone.

On a microscopic level, bone is porous. With osteoporosis, those structural elements become thinner. We typically reach maximum bone mass at around age 30, then we start losing it at about one percent a year. That’s accelerated in menopausal women in particular, to about two to three percentage points.

“That means it’s possible by your 70s to lose up to half of what your bone density was in your early 30s. It’s a big issue for women. Men don’t have the same accelerated loss as women do.

“Also, if a person was very active with a lot of calcium in their diet, then their peak bone mass will be higher, and they probably won’t slip into range of osteoporosis later.”

Goodman said there are three things that people can do to prevent osteoporosis or limit the progress of the disease:

• Be active and exercise.

• Have 1200 mg to 1500 mg of calcium in your daily diet (a glass of milk is around 300 mg).

• Take about 600 IUs of Vitamin D daily. Anyone with a broken bone from a fall of less than standing height should be screened, Goodman adds. Also, women with hysterectomy with ovaries removed will enter the range earlier, and steroid medicines for other diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, can accelerate bone loss, as well.

“There are pills and shots that can reverse the effects. So for instance, if your bone mass drops to 70 percent, you can potentially reverse it over a few years, and improve your bone density by anywhere from two to 10 percentage points a year,” he said.

“Any dairy in your diet will help, too.

Yogurt or cottage cheese, even low fat, is still going to help slow down bone loss. The pharmaceuticals can actually reverse it, however.

“It’s a balancing act. Dermatologists don’t want you in the sun, but on the other hand, a little sunshine and outdoor activity helps prevent osteoporosis by converting the Vitamin D in your body. A treadmill is good, but riding outside on a sunny day is better.”

Goodman said between 20 to 40 percent of Caucasian women in their 70s to 80s can have osteoporosis.

“There are number of things you can do to prevent it, and number of things your doctor can to help improve your bone mass, so get screened and see what you may need to do,” Goodman said.

For more information, go to www.louisianaarthritisclinic.com or www. arthdoc.com, or call 424-9240, or visit Goodman and his staff at the Arthritis and Rheumatology Clinic, located at 740 Jordan St. in Shreveport.

– Eric Lincoln