No one plans on bone loss, so it’s best to stop it before it starts.
Healthy adults—especially women over 40—can expect to experience normal bone loss. Adults lose approximately between .5 percent and 1 percent of their bone mineral density every year. While that doesn’t sound like much, years of losing a seemingly small percentage of bone mineral density adds up, and if left unchecked, osteoporosis can occur. In 2004, the U.S. Surgeon General warned that unless steps are taken by the year 2020, 50 percent of Americans past the age of 50 would be at risk for fractures due to osteoporosis and low bone mass.
Currently, osteoporosis leads to 1.5 million fractures per year, mostly in the hip, spine and wrist, according to the National Institutes of Health. The condition afflicts more than 44 million Americans—68 percent of them older women. For women, bone loss accelerates during and after menopause to about 5 percent for five to seven years, and then returns to 1-2 percent per year.
Simply put, women could lose up to 35 percent of their bone mass during their menopausal years alone. Additionally, one in three women past the age of 50 will suffer a vertebral fracture because her bones are brittle. Shrinking height is also a revealing sign of osteoporosis.