Building strong bones is a life-long process.

You can take steps at any age to prevent osteoporosis.

• It's best for children, adolescents and young adults to build strong bones early in life with diets rich in calcium, regular weight-bearing exercise and healthy lifestyle choices.
• Middle-age adults should take added steps to preserve bone health, particularly women at menopause when the decrease in estrogen accelerates bone loss.
• With age, the likelihood of developing osteoporosis increases. Older adults should discuss osteoporosis with their doctors, who may recommend lifestyle and dietary changes, increased exercise, or medication to stop further bone loss.
• For those with osteoporosis, fractures can be prevented by adjusting the home and environment to protect you from falling.

What can I do to take charge ?

• Discuss osteoporosis with your doctor: Despite the fact that osteoporosis may affect one in every two women, three of every four women have never discussed osteoporosis with their doctors.
• Know your risk: Studies indicate that bone loss may begin as early as age 25. With menopause, bone loss can accelerate rapidly with as much as 6-10% of the skeleton being lost in the first year after a woman's periods stop. While bone loss may be lessened with self-treatment with vitamin D supplements and dietary and lifestyle changes, treatment with prescription drugs is often required to completely prevent progression of the disease. Moreover, the amount and rate of bone loss can only be detected with DXA.
• Seek expert medical evaluation: Washington University's Bone Health Program is a multidisciplinary, ambulatory care service for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of metabolic bone diseases, particularly osteoporosis. The Bone Health Program specialists provide individualized consultation tailored to each patient's symptoms, bone density, risk factors, and test results. Regarded as one of the premier medical services in the U.S. for the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis, the Bone Health Program combines medical expertise with the latest technology to deliver definitive evaluation and comprehensive medical consultation. Instrumental in the development of the technique to measure bone mineral density, the Bone Health Program's medical specialists use definitive measurements of bone density of the spine, hip, or forearm to insure thoughtful and accurate diagnosis and certain response to therapy.