To Your Health: Osteoporosis & Osteopenia!

03 May To Your Health: Osteoporosis & Osteopenia!

Part-time Telluride local, Dr. Alan Safdi, is a world-renowned internist and gastroenterologist with encyclopedic knowledge of mind-body wellness and preventative medicine. He posts regularly on Telluride Inside… and Out under the banner of “To Your Health.” Dr. Alan’s blogs feature the most current information in his fields: health, wellness and longevity.

Links to Dr. Alan’s podcasts and narratives on COVID-19 are here.

This week, in two different podcasts, Dr. Alan talks about how, in the United States, millions of people either already have osteoporosis or are at high risk due to low bone mass. Check out the first podcasts here.  It is all about osteoporosis and weak bones that lead to hip and vertebral body fractures. And here the second podcast is all about osteopenia and steps to prevent weak bone that lead to hip and vertebral body fractures.

Osteoporosis is a “silent” disease because you typically do not have symptoms, and you may not even know you have the disease until you break a bone. Osteoporosis is the major cause of fractures in postmenopausal women and in older men. Fractures can occur in any bone but happen most often in bones of the hip, vertebrae in the spine, and wrist. In the podcast about, we discuss diagnosis and treatment and the surprising fact that we are not diagnosing and treating the disease as aggressively as I hoped we would.

Anyone can develop osteoporosis, but it is more common in older women, but men are not spared. Risk factors include:

• Getting older
• Being small and thin
• Having a family history of osteoporosis
• Taking certain medicines
• Being a white or Asian woman
• Having low bone density

Bones affected by osteoporosis may become so fragile that fractures occur spontaneously or as the result of:

• Minor falls, such as a fall from standing height that would not normally cause a break in a healthy bone.
• Normal stresses such as bending, lifting, or even coughing.
• Typically there are no symptoms until a bone is broken or one or more vertebrae collapse (fracture). Symptoms of vertebral fracture include severe back pain, loss of height, or spine malformations such as a stooped or hunched posture (kyphosis).

Dr. Alan, more:

Dr. Alan Safdi is board-certified in Internal Medicine and in Gastroenterology and is a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology. A proven leader in the healthcare arena, he has been featured on the national program, “Medical Crossfire” and authored or co-authored numerous medical articles and abstracts.

Safdi, a long-time Telluride local, has been involved in grant-based and clinical research for four decades. He is passionate about disease prevention and wellness, not just fixing what has gone wrong.

Dr. Alan is an international lecturer on the subjects of wellness, nutrition and gastroenterology.