How To Recognize The Primary Risk Factors For Osteoporosis

What are the primary risk factors for osteoporosis?

Well, when we look at a new patient with osteoporosis, the physician asks questions which relate to risk factors, as in any other condition like heart disease. In osteoporosis we ask about heredity. If your mother had osteoporosis there's maybe a 5% chance that you might have osteoporosis. Hormone abnormalities are very important. Both post-menopausal women not taking oestrogen, and sometimes elderly males who don't have adequate testosterone, lose bone. If you have a disease like asthma and you require steroid hormone treatments; cortisone-like drugs, that's a very prominent cause of osteoporosis due to bone loss from these drugs. Heavily smoking cigarettes is associated with osteoporosis (the exact reason is not clear), and alcohol in large amounts is, in a sense, poison for bone.