Cal-EZ Blog

Although elderly women are more likely to get osteoporosis, osteoporosis can occur in almost any person at any age, including men.

Unfortunately, osteoporosis in men is often not recognized.

There are many reasons for this and just as many risks to men’s health.

We’ve been talking a lot about bone health and osteoporosis on the Cal-EZ blog lately. Here on earth, we have certain things we need to do to keep our bones healthy. But what happens when your childhood dream of becoming an astronaut comes true and you find yourself on a mission in outer space or being able to live on the International Space Station or end up like Sandra Bullock in Gravity?

According to this article, Dr John Kelly at the University of Pennsylvania, considers osteoporosis a pediatric disease. How can that be? Everyone knows that osteoporosis affects the little old ladies after they’ve gone through “the change” or the little old men at the nursing home. So why would it be considered a pediatric disease?

Here at Cal-EZ, we talk a lot about bone health and diseases of calcium deficiency like osteoporosis, hypoparathyroidism, and gastroparesis. And even though I'm so immersed in this world of calcium, I find some facts very startling. Like this tweet from the National Osteoporosis Society in the UK.

When I googled silent disease, one of the first things I saw was an article on osteoporosis. I've heard that osteoporosis is a silent disease, and you, like me, may be wondering why it's called this. A silent disease is one that continues to develop in the absence of symptoms. So how does this apply to osteoporosis?

We tend to think of bones as being the foundation on top of which the other structures of our body are formed, like a house being built on a concrete slab. Unlike the house's foundation that remains solid and inert, our bones are alive like the rest of our body and are always being broken down and rebuilt. Sometimes though, our bones are not able to be built back as fast as they are broken down, resulting in osteoporosis.

Have you ever seen a little old woman all stooped over with age? The curved back that causes a decrease in height? The manifestation of osteoporosis that’s typically called a dowager’s hump? I have. In fact, my great grandmother, my grandmother, and my father were hunchbacked. But getting older doesn’t mean we have to settle for the “typical” aging problems. Some of the osteoporotic changes seen with aging can be prevented or greatly reduced. Here’s how to take your health in your own hands and slow or even stop the progression of osteoporosis.