OSTEOPOROSIS: New Prevention and Detection Guidelines Set
The National Osteoporosis Foundation kicked off Osteoporosis Prevention Month yesterday by releasing a new set of guidelines for preventing, detecting and treating the disease. Reuters/Philadelphia Inquirer reports that experts recommend that all people eat 1,200 mg of calcium daily, absorb 400 to 800 international units of Vitamin D -- "available for free in about 10 minutes a day of sunshine" -- engage in weight-bearing exercise and avoid smoking and alcohol abuse. The foundation recommends that the following women should have a bone density test: women 65 and older, postmenopausal women who have one or more risk factors for osteoporosis such as smoking, and all postmenopausal women who have had a fracture. The foundation reports that approximately "28 million Americans, most of them women, have osteoporosis, but only 14% of them get treated for it." Foundation President Dr. Robert Lindsay said, "Osteoporosis is a silent risk factor for fracture just as hypertension is for stroke. Prevention, detection and treatment should be a mandate of primary care and a routine part of physicals" (11/6). Click here to order a copy of the new treatment guidelines.
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