Posted on 08/26/2009 8:45:36 PM PDT by neverdem
Rates of hip fractures, an often devastating consequence of osteoporosis, have been steadily falling for two decades in Canada, a new study finds. And a similar trend occurred in the United States, researchers found. But it is not clear why.
Drugs that slow the rate of bone loss may be part of the reason, but they cannot be the entire explanation, osteoporosis researchers say. And although experts can point to other possible factors — like fall prevention efforts and a heavier population — the declining rates remain a medical mystery.
The new study, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed Canadian hospitalization data. From 1985 through 2005, the researchers report, hip fracture rates, adjusted for the age of the population, fell by 32 percent in women and by 25 percent in men.
A United States study, published in 2007 to little notice, analyzed national data on hospital discharges from 1993 through 2003 and found nearly the same percentage declines in hip fracture rates.
Dr. Stephen H. Gehlbach of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst reported a 20 percent decline in the age-adjusted hip fracture rate for men and women in that 11-year period. The drop was so pronounced that even though there were more older people in the population in 2003 than in 1993, there actually were fewer hip fractures. In 1993, 225,000 Americans were discharged from hospitals after being treated for a broken hip. In 2003, that number was 209,000.
In Canada, there was a slight increase in the absolute number of hip fractures in the 21-year period studied because there were more so many more elderly people in 2005 than in 1985.
“I was amazed,” said Dr. William D. Leslie, a professor of medicine and radiology at the University of Manitoba and the Canadian study’s lead...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Global Warming?
/johnny
LOL..beat me to it.
Maybe they have received government counseling prior to the stage where they break the hip.
Gramma gets up, gets in chair, sits all day relieves herself all day in diaper, gets cleaned up at bedtime, goes to bed lives though the night again and the cycle starts again.
More cell phones and cordless phones.
Gramma carries a phone in the basket of her wheelchair or walker—doesn’t feel compelled to hurry across the throw rugs when the damn thing rings.
More safety rails in bathrooms? Decorative canes? More people out in public with decorative canes/walkers, so other people who need them are more willing to use them? More natural padding on us calorically-challenged Americans? (Wouldn’t that throw a wrench in the anti-obesity programs the nanny-state has in mind for us?)
How about more “Make Mine Milk” commercials fifty years ago so we are better calcified?
Why = Beer.
Ah, more of the elders are taking up golf and thus keeping themselves in shape...
baby aspirin and cheese whiz...
osteoporosis is an old-white-woman specific problem. A more diverse population will make broken hips less common.
Just a hunch.
how about better shoes?......more people wearing sensible low heeled shoes.....however, many hips break before the fall so there must be another reason.....
My Mom is 80. She considers herself healthy and active. She’s been eating a lowfat, low protein diet for decades. She’s quite thin. And yes, she has had two hip fractures! A lot of good that fosamax has done for her! The biophosnates do slow bone loss, but also prevent the growth of new bone. There are some new ideas about osteoporosis therapy out there, but ObamaCare will probably kill all that...
Maybe it’s a healthful benefit of obesity. Or trans-fat.
now there might be the reason...heavier people have more bone density...more bone density, less osteoporosis....less osteoporosis, less hip fractures......we all know that western societies have gotten heavier over the last few decades...
the rare advantage of carrying extra weight....
so it makes all the sense in the world that your thin mother might not have the greatest bone density....( I think because the extra weight of a heavier person puts more strain on your bones, thus keeping the density )
Butts are getting so big that the fall is cushioned.
Beer - is there anything it can’t do?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.