Your Bone Health

Bone Health Facts:

	As a woman ages, her risk of developing osteoporosis is greater than her combined risk of heart attack, stroke, and cancer of the breast and uterus.
	In the U.S., over 1,000,000 fractures associated with osteoporosis occur each year.

Such statistics are sobering, especially when considering how current treatment and medication can prevent this debilitating disease making many fractures related to osteoporosis avoidable. Every woman needs to be aware of her risk of osteoporosis.

The process of removing old bone and replacing it with new bone is called bone turnover or bone resorption. Within bone, there are cells called osteoblasts whose function is to make or form new bone. There are other cells called osteoclasts that break down or resorb old bone. If bone breakdown is happening faster than bone formation, the net result will be an overall serious loss of bone - osteoporosis.

Until the age of about 30, the body builds bones efficiently. Then, as part of the aging process, bones begin to break down faster than new bone can be formed. In women, bone loss accelerates during menopause, when the ovaries stop producing estrogen - the hormone that arrests bone loss.

One significant benefit of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is protection against bone loss by returning estrogen levels to bone-protecting pre-menopausal levels.

Research has shown that post-menopausal women taking estrogen supplementation have about 50% fewer hip fractures and 75% fewer spinal fractures (the most common fractures related to osteoporosis) than those not taking an estrogen supplement.

Pyrilinks-D is a laboratory test that measures deoxypyridinoline (Dpd), a product of bone breakdown and a specific urinary marker for bone resorption. This test is a useful tool for identifying and evaluating patients at risk for accelerated bone loss. In addition, Pyrilinks-D can measure whether supplementation and other lifestyle interventions are affecting the rate of bone loss and lessening the risk of osteoporosis and fracture.

Since Dpd levels decrease with intervention, it is important to periodically monitor changes in bone resorption levels to assure that the intervention is effective. Semi-annual Pyrilinks-D urine testing assures careful tracking of bone health and allows assessment of changes in therapy.