Am I at Risk for Osteoporosis?

Our skeleton is so vital for every basic movement we make, as well as protecting vital organs in our bodies, and the 206 bones that make it up do so much more, including releasing hormones, storing nutrients, and producing blood cells. Despite being dense and strong, bones are living tissue, and they even have lymphatic vessels, nerves, and blood.

Aside from physical injury, there are a number of conditions that can affect bones, and over time do significant damage to parts of your skeleton. Osteoporosis is a common issue many people struggle with as they get older, and managing the disease is possible, but you should know your risks of getting it. 

To understand osteoporosis and what it can do to your body, let’s examine what it is, its causes and risk factors, and the effects it can have on your nervous system if left unchecked.

If you live in the Norwood, Anderson, or Westside, Ohio, or Crestview Hills, Kentucky, area and you’re struggling with osteoporosis or possible neurological problems related to it, the team of specialists at Riverhills Neuroscience can help. 

Defining osteoporosis

Bones are not a solid mass, despite their appearance. They are filled with a network of porous layers (looking more like a honeycomb than a solid mass under a microscope) that when healthy stay strong and regrow when broken or otherwise damaged.

If you’re struggling with osteoporosis, the space between the holes in the porous layers widens to the point that they weaken bones and lose bone density, which can make fractures and breaks much easier to occur.

Osteoporosis is more common in people 50 and older and affects 50 million in the U.S. alone. It often affects your hips, spine, and wrists, and can lead to changes in your natural posture, losing an inch or more in height, lower back pain, and shortness of breath

Causes and risk factors

Your bones have grown and reformed with you over your lifetime, and up until your 30s you actually build more bone density than you lose through regrowth and reformation. Older than that, and slowly you start losing more bone density. 

The following don’t guarantee dealing with osteoporosis, but several factors can lead to the disease, including:

• Race: people of white or Asian descent are more likely to struggle with this bone condition
• Sex: women are more likely than men to deal with osteoporosis
• Family history: if anyone in your immediate family is struggling with osteoporosis, the chances of you having it increase
• Body frame: people with smaller body frames tend to have a greater risk of this bone density issue as they likely have less bone mass overall
• Hormone levels: as you get older, you produce less sex hormones, which leads to bone loss, and thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal gland problems can cause it as well
• Dietary factors: things like gastrointestinal surgery and eating disorders can affect your intake of important nutrients for your bones like calcium
• Medications: some drugs for seizures, gastric reflux, transplant rejection, and cancer can affect bone density, as can extended use of corticosteroids

How quickly problems start developing with bone density depend on how much has built up in your younger years, which is different for everyone. 

How it can affect your nervous system

The spine is a common place for this disease, and it often results in compression fractures in the vertebrae if they become weak enough. These small cracks and breaks occur in the rounded front part of the vertebrae, and will start to affect posture as it weakens, but eventually lead to collapse in the spinal column (often in the middle spine). A million compression fractures happen in the U.S. annually, and one of the many problems it can cause is pinched or compressed nerves due to the collapse.

Several factors increase your chances of osteoporosis, but even if you have it there are options to keep it from becoming a problem. Make an appointment with the team at Riverhills Neuroscience today to prevent compression fractures and other problems due to osteoporosis.