EN 
ES Dr. Miriam Rodríguez. Family doctor, Family Medicine of the General Hospital of the Plaza de la Salud (HGPS).
When this World Osteoporosis Day is celebrated on October 20, we must ask ourselves the following question, do I really ... take care of my bones?
It is a very important question to internalize and think about whether I am really doing it, if I am prepared for when I am in adulthood, which is when the changes really begin and when they can become fragile. Or in another tenor, I already have osteoporosis, what do I know about this condition?
Getting healthy bones is not something that requires a lot of effort; but very careful. In our culture when we are in the childhood stage we are only taught to take care of our posture, extending this until our adolescence and it is not until we reach adulthood that we begin to think about the care of our bones, if they are healthy or not; believing that only there is that they can suffer some damage. But the reality is different. Bones should be taken care of from birth until the last breath of life. This is why this time I want to tell you how important this care is; but first we must define what is osteoporosis
This is a chronic and progressive disease in which the bones weaken and become fragile. To make it easier to divide the word osteoporosis, by doing so we would have Osteo, which is a prefixal element means bone and porosity that is a measure of empty spaces in a material.
Normally our body constantly absorbs and replaces bone tissue; but when we have osteoporosis, it does not allow the new bone tissue that was created to be sufficient to replace the one that was removed, causing bone mass reduction and deterioration of the bone microarchitecture, making them more fragile and therefore increasing the risk of fractures. .
Epidemiologically it is said that it affects more the feminine sex than the masculine one, calculating that 30 to 50% of the menopausal women will suffer it. It is associated with aging, it is said that 1 in 10 adults around the age of 50 has osteoporosis, although there are causes which can favor its early appearance. It affects 200 million people worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2025 around 3.3 million women over 50 will have osteopenia and 1.65 million with osteoporosis, figures that will increase to 5.24 and 2.62 million respectively for 2050. And what happens after the age of 50, although there are causes in which it can start at an earlier age.
It is considered a silent epidemic, since it has no symptoms until bone loss is so important that fractures appear.
And despite being silent, the main symptoms are spinal deformity as a result of the forward lean, dental losses when it affects the jaw and compression of internal organs caused by the curvature of the spine.
Posted in: Today Digital Newspaper.
