Osteoporosis prevention and treatment is extremely important

Osteoporosis prevention and treatment is extremely important toward the quality of one\'s life. Please respond to TWO of the questions below and provide resources to support foor your view.
1) Do you feel that supplements replace the benefits of dairy products?
2) Can osteoporosis in menopausal women be prevented without medical treatment?
3) Should female athletes have regular bone density assessments?
4) Are the current AI and UL for vitamin D appropriate and is vitamin D as important in bone health as calcium?

Solution

2) Can osteoporosis in menopausal women be prevented without medical treatment?

Prevention of osteoporosis in menopausal women can be simple with following a healthy lifestyle. This includes:

regular exercise

consuming food high in calcium

calcium supplements

taking care of vitamin D as vitamin D helps in calcium absorption

avoiding certain medications such as steroids, drugs for breast cancer treatment, drugs for seizures, blood thinners, thyroid medications.

limiting alcohol consumption

avoiding smoking

Hormone therapy is mostly used for treatment of Osteoporosis in high risk cases but it is not commonly recommended for the sole purpose of preventing osteoporosis. This is because women on HRT were found to be at higher risk for blood clots, stroke, and breast cancer.

3) Should female athletes have regular bone density assessments?

Female athletes should have regular bone density assessments. Osteoporosis in athletes is associated with many factors such as age of onset training, duration, intensity and volume of training, sports, diet and stress( both psychological and physiological).

Athletic triad is a syndrome which occurs in female athletes when amenorrhoea and osteoporosis occur together. Female athletes are more likely to develop the athlete triad during adolescence and young adulthood, thus the need for testing them regularly for bone assessment.

Anorexia and bulimia are now more frequent, both in the general population and athletes (Grinspoon et al., 1999; Sundgot-Borgen, 1993; Sundgot-Borgen, 2000; Miller et al., 2005).

Osteoporosis in young female athletes is sports specific; there is a much greater risk in appearance sports, such as diving, figure skating, gymnastics and ballet ; Endurance sports like running, particularly in marathon runners; Weight category sports like jockeys, judo etc. It is associated with age of onset of training, duration of participation in training, intensity and volume of training, the sport concerned, diet and stress (Riggs, 1981).