Osteoporosis is a degenerative bone disease that every woman should view as a potential enemy. According to a 2004 Surgeon General's Report, by the year 2020 half of Americans over age fifty will be at risk of fracture and low bone mass. Ten million people already have osteoporosis, and another 34 million are at risk for developing it. What is really frightening is that 80 percent of the Americans either diagnosed or at heightened risk are women.

If your first instinct upon reading these statistics is to dash out and stock up on calcium supplements, hold on a minute. Your best weapon against osteoporosis is knowledge; take a moment to get the facts on this disease. Then, you can get the calcium supplements — and follow the simple prescription for bone health offered later in this chapter.

What Is Osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis is a disease in which your bones lose density. When you have osteoporosis, your bone tissue deteriorates, leaving your bones structurally weak and susceptible to fractures. Typically, victims of osteoporosis suffer fractures in their hips, spinal vertebrae, and wrists, but any bone in the body can crumble when this disease progresses to an advanced state.

Many people think of their adult bones the same way they view their home's framework: a stable and unchanging support for the growing, vital parts of the body's makeup. But bones are alive. Bone tissue is in a constant state of evolution, as the body replaces old bone cells with new bone cells. When you're a child, your bones have a lot of growing to do, so your body produces much more new bone than it takes back in through reabsorption (the process of absorbing old bone cells back into the body).

When Does It Happen?

Around age thirty-five, your body reaches a stage of peak bone mass, where your bones are as large and dense as they will ever be. At that stage, reabsorption slowly begins to outpace bone production. If reabsorption becomes too rapid or if bone cell production becomes too slow, you're at risk for developing osteoporosis. If you didn't build your bones to their optimum size during the years leading to peak bone mass, your risk is even greater.

Right now, there is no cure for osteoporosis. But you can slow the progress of the disease dramatically through a treatment plan involving some combination of medication, diet, and exercise. Recent experiments with drugs that may actually help rebuild lost bone tissue offer true encouragement to victims of this disease and those who treat them. But remember, prevention is easier than treatment.