Urban Indians are suffering from brittle bones : Study

New Delhi: A study on osteoporotic fracture risk in urban Indian population shows that the incidence of osteoporosis was high in the city dwellers. According to the study among people aged between 38 and 68 years shows 9% of them, including men and women, suffer from osteoporosis while nearly 60% have osteopenia.

Osteopenia and osteoporosis are related bone diseases. Osteoporosis causes bones to become weak and brittle- so brittle that a fall or even mild stresses such as bending over or coughing can cause a fracture. Osteoporosis-related fractures most commonly occur in the hip, wrist or spine. Osteoporosis is usually considered a ‘silent disease’ until a fracture occurs. Osteoporosis leads to nearly nine million fractures annually worldwide. Osteopenia is a bone condition characterized by bone loss that is not as severe as in osteoporosis.

According to the report of the study, published in latest March (2018) edition of Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR), published by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), this survey was done among people living in living in areas like Sukhdev Vihar, Sarita Vihar, Kalkaji, East of Kailash and Mayur Vihar in New Delhi. This survey was carried out by Dr Vipul Vijay, Dr Amit K. Agarwal & Dr Prashant Maheshwari under the guidance of Dr (Prof.) Raju Vaishya.

The details of the study can be found here. 

“In our study, the presence of osteopenia and osteoporosis was found to be higher in the urban Indian population. A high incidence of osteopenia and osteoporosis was observed in the studied population. Significant association of sex, parent history of fracture and secondary osteoporosis was found in the present study whereas alcohol and steroid intake were not found to be significantly associated with the low T-scores”, said Dr Raju Vaishya, senior orthopaedic surgeon at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi.

He said that low level of bone density could have serious socio-economic burden in the future as the population of the elderly are bound to increase. Identification of individuals who are at risk of developing osteoporosis and adequate treatment can prevent long-term morbidity due to osteoporotic fractures. Unfortunately, most population is largely unaware of the serious complications associated with osteoporosis. Even in the absence of a large scale cross-sectional study, hip fractures (HFs) are considered common and the peak incidence of osteoporotic HF is in younger age, around 50-60 yr.

For this study, 14 camps were organized in total and every third person attending the camp was included in the study. The cluster of individuals mainly belonged to the middle and upper class, according to revised modified BG Prasad classification15. The number of patients included in the study from each camp ranged from 20 to 35.