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Media Releases
Mostly a Women's Disease, Osteoporosis Strikes Men Too
Columbia, Mo. (July 15, 2005) - Ask any man what his greatest health fears are, and he will probably say heart disease and cancer. While heart disease and cancer continue to be the top killers of men, osteoporosis, traditionally thought of as a woman's disease, can have a deadly side too. Two million men in the United States have it and three million are on their way to develop it. Osteoporosis, a condition marked by thinning of the bones, develops slowly and stealthily. Often, the first warning sign is a broken hip or a fracture in the backbone.
While it is true that 80 percent of the 10 million Americans with osteoporosis are women, men can fall prey too. But unlike women, men do not enjoy the benefits of early screening, which is one foolproof way to detect early bone loss and ward off potentially deadly fractures. One in five people over the age of 65 who suffer an osteoporosis-related fracture will die within a year, according to a report by the Surgeon General's Office.
"Men may be the 'forgotten sex' when it comes to osteoporosis," says Dr. Sara E. Walker, a rheumatologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center. "Men are clearly at risk as they grow older, and factors such as low testosterone levels and treatment with prednisone, a corticosteroid drug, will contribute to bone thinning in men."
But why is osteoporosis overlooked in men?
"Osteoporosis is often overlooked in women, but it's definitely overlooked among men because all public-health initiatives have been focused on women," says Laura Robbins, Ph.D., associate scientist at the Research Division of New York City's Hospital for Special Surgery, which specializes in treatment and research of orthopedic conditions.
Low perception of risk among men and physician oversight may not be the only factors. Because women are at greater risk, insurance companies cover bone density tests for women, but not for men.
"We do not screen men routinely for osteoporosis," Walker says. "For one thing, routine bone densitometry screening in men is not covered by insurance plans."
Routine screening is not done in men, but men who are at risk are screened.
"We do screen men who are at risk," Walker says. "Such screening would usually be employed in the case of a man who has one or more conditions predisposing to osteoporosis."
Conditions that put a man at risk for osteoporosis include:
Advancing age
Hypogonadism, resulting in low production of testosterone
Treatment with 7.5 mg or more of prednisone a day for more than three months
Doctors suspect that osteoporosis is present in men when an X-ray shows bones that appear too thin, or when a patient reports a fracture that occurred with a minor injury.
Both men and women can maintain good bone density by avoiding smoking, skipping alcohol, and getting at least 30 minutes of weight-bearing exercise a day.
A good intake of calcium -- at least 1, 500 milligrams a day-- and adequate vitamin D intake also help to maintain bone health, Walker recommends.
Each year, roughly 1.5 million people suffer a bone fracture related to osteoporosis.
Fractures are the most dangerous result of untreated osteoporosis, and untreated osteoporosis can be deadly. One in five senior citizens who have a hip fracture die within a year, and hip fractures account for 300,000 hospitalizations a year, the Surgeon General's report says.
The direct cost of care for osteoporosis-related fractures saps the nation's economy of $18 billion a year.
For more information on osteoporosis and arthritis and related conditions, go to www.marrtc.org/conditions/osteoporosis.html
The Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (MARRTC) was established in 1971 at the University of Missouri-Columbia Arthritis Center. MARRTC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (H133B031120) and is the only federally funded arthritis rehabilitation research and training center in the country.
As part of the MU Health Communication Research Center (HCRC), MARRTC's mission is to become a national leader in the areas of disability management and communication, improve the quality of life and promote independent living among people who have arthritis and arthritic conditions.
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