From the March 2003 Scientific American Magazine | 1 comments

Restoring Aging Bones ( Preview )

The bone decay of osteoporosis can cripple, but an improved understanding of how the body builds and loses bone is leading to ever better prevention and treatment options

By Clifford J. Rosen

NEW TREATMENTS and preventives for osteoporosis are allowing women--and men--to avoid its worst consequences.

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March
2003 Issue
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Late last year a new patient, 72-year-old Maxine LaLiberte, limped into my office. She said she had always been very active. She baby-sat frequently for her nine grandchildren and had been looking forward to a long-planned cross-country motor home trip with her husband. But now the excruciating pain between her shoulder blades was curtailing her movements and making her feel old.

I was all too familiar with those symptoms in people my patient's age. Even without examining her, I was reasonably sure that one or more of her vertebrae had fractured as a result of osteoporosis, a disorder characterized by bone loss so severe that fractures occur spontaneously or from even minor bumps.

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