Men At Risk for Osteoporosis

Most men believe it is a woman's disease.

However, more than 2-million American men have it and many more are at risk for osteoporosis.

Eighty five year-old Bill Dodds is a regular at the fitness center ever since he learned he had osteoporosis.

Dodds does not notice any signs of osteoporosis, and that is not unusual.

Very often, people learn they have it after they suffer a debilitating hip or spinal fracture.

Dodds was lucky, his doctor tested him before that happened, and now he is part of a National Institute of Health study on men and osteoporosis.

Dr. Joan McGowan of the National Institutes of Health says, "There's a lot that we don't know but I think one of the major problems that men have is that not only they themselves but their physicians don't even recognize it as a threat. And yet, about 25% of the costs of fractures in this country are fractures in men."

Doctors already have guidelines about when women should be screened for osteoporosis, but those kinds of recommendations do not exist for men.

The National Institutes of Health study should produce some, soon.
source:www.wndu.com