For good bones, get children out the house

To reduce the occurrence of osteoporosis, parents need to get the children outside the house and out on the playing field and not behind a computer or in front of the television. “The main message we are sending is diet and exercise. It’s the same thing any doctor treating any illness would tell his patient,” said Dr Neil Persad, orthopaedic surgeon at the San Fernando General Hospital. Dr Persad recommended weight bearing exercises on the feet such as walking, running, jogging, volley ball, badminton, track and field and aerobics, which, he said, helped improve bone mass.

However, in severe cases where a person is diagnosed with the disease, medication is recommended. In addressing the small gathering that turned out for the education seminar on Osteoporosis hosted by Kappa Drugs at the Chamber of Commerce in Westmoorings,  Dr Persad spoke of ways to detect and treat what he described as “a silent disease.” He said that osteoporosis, a disease of the bones, should not be confused with osteoarthritis,  a disease of the joints. “Osteoporosis affects the bones to the extent where there is a substantial increase of the bones breaking. “Some have it and don’t know it until some catastrophic event occurs,” he said.

The disease is largely undiagnosed and untreated and affects all the bones in the body, mainly the hip, wrist and spine. Dr Persad was unable to quote local statistics of the number of persons affected by the disease but said that some 75 million people in Europe, Japan and the USA have been diagnosed. He said the disease is commonly seen in women, particularly women at the post-menopausal stage. “Women will experience their peak bone mass around the age of 30. It is the most bone you will have in your life, then you start losing bone.” A peak in bone mass, he said, is determined by one’s genetic influence,  nutritional factors, hormonal factors, a deficiency in estrogen in women and testosterone in men, and exercise. Among the modifiable risk factors were low body weight under 127 pounds, use of steroids, cigarette smoking and excessive use of alcohol. He said that persons of Chinese, African and East Indian races are more likely to be at risk of developing the disease.