Causes Of Osteoporosis

Your bones are made up of two vital minerals, calcium and phosphate. For the first 25 years of your life these minerals are easily absorbed from your diet and converted into bone tissues by your body. This helps in the thickening of the bones.

But, in case if the appropriate amount of phosphate and calcium is not received by the food you consume your body makes use of the calcium stored in the bones. Thus, in case of a deficiency of the mineral your body derives the calcium it needs for its daily functioning from the bones reducing thereby amount of minerals stored there slowly and steadily.

This leads to a condition where in the bones become fragile and porous which is medically termed as Osteoporosis. Once a person is affected with Osteoporosis he/she becomes easily prone to fractures. The initial phase of osteoporosis is Osteopenia. In this stage there are no symptoms shown by the disease and hence mostly goes undetected.

In fact, a person comes to know of the existence of the disease in his/her body only after he/she suffers a fracture and this usually happens when the disease has progressed way beyond control. Age is another factor that causes Osteoporosis. As you grow old the rate at which the minerals from your diet are stored into bones slows down while the rate at which your body needs calcium remains the same thereby creating a large difference.

Hence, age leads to loss of bone density thereby making your bone very fragile. The loss of bone density also increases after a person has reached the stage of menopause. The rate at which a women’s bone density is lost after menopause tends to increase by a percent or two each and every year.

This happens due to sudden fall in the levels of the hormone ‘estrogen’ which is responsible for maintaining the appropriate thickness of the bone by enabling the storage of calcium in the bones.

A couple of diseases or medical conditions hyperthyroidism, scurvy, rheumatoid, cirrhosis, arthritis, leukemia, lymphoma, kidney disease, deficiency of vitamin D, etc are also likely to be causes of Osteoporosis. People who have deprived their body of adequate calcium or vitamin D in the initial years of their life are more prone to developing Osteoporosis.