An average of one in three women and one in five men older than 50 have osteoporosis, but most high-risk people do not take preventive measures, the Taiwanese Osteoporosis Association said yesterday.
Marking World Osteoporosis Day, the association said that the disease, which occurs when bones become weak and break more easily, is common among people above 50, but added that it is called a “silent disease” and is often neglected because people do not notice the symptoms.
Association secretary-general Lin Gau-tyan (林高田), an orthopedic surgeon at Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, said that once osteoporosis sets in, some people might start showing mild symptoms such as a stooped posture, pain in the back or lower back when getting out of bed, or a gradual loss of height.
As these signs are often neglected, a vast majority of people with osteoporosis find out about their condition only after sustaining a fracture, Lin said.
Studies have shown that hip fractures in Taiwan occur at a rate higher than many other countries, and the one-year mortality rate after sustaining a hip fracture is nearly 20 percent, higher than for some forms of cancer, Lin said.
Nearly 80 percent of people who are at high risk of osteoporosis do not take preventive measures or seek treatment, he said, citing a survey by the association.
People who have fractured a bone are twice as likely to have a repeat injury, he said.
People who use steroids, and women who have had an ovariectomy, go through menopause before they are 45 or have low estrogen levels are at greater risk of developing osteoporosis, Lin said, urging such people to regularly undergo bone-density tests and take preventive measures against osteoporosis and fractures.
People should consume food rich in calcium, such as milk and other dairy products; get plenty of sunlight, so that their bodies can produce vitamin D; maintain strong muscle and bone density through weight training; and improve their fitness from a young age to prevent the loss of bone mass, which can lead to osteoporosis and fractures, the association said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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