Below is a well-written and pertinent article for many Spine Patients.

How A Bone Disease Grew To Fit The Prescription
by Alix Spiegel, Copyright 2009 NPR

December 21, 2009

Katie Benghauser had no concept of all the forces that combined to bring the box of pills to the bottom shelf of her medicine cabinet. All she knew was that three years ago she went in for a routine checkup and her doctor told her it was time for her to take a test.

Not that there was anything in particular about Benghauser that suggested sickness. At 54 she exercised every day and could outrun most 20-year-olds. She was a model of health.

Still, because Benghauser was thin, white, female, in her 50s and had a sister who had some bone problems, she says the doctor told her that she was concerned. "She felt like because my frame is slight and I'm female, that I was at risk for developing osteoporosis."

Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become thinner, more porous and break more easily. It mostly affects elderly women, who can be devastated by a fall that breaks their hip. One in five elderly women who break a hip will die within a year. Still, just to make sure, Benghauser went in for a test that measured the density of her bones. Two weeks later a letter came in the mail with an unsettling message: Benghauser had a condition called osteopenia, and her doctor recommended medication...

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