Bones Deseases

BONES DESEASES
Your bones help you move, give you shape and support your body. They are living tissues that rebuild constantly throughout your life. During childhood and your teens, your body adds new bone faster than it removes old bone. After about age 20, you can lose bone faster than you make bone. To have strong bones when you are young, and to prevent bone loss when you are older, you needto get enough calcium, vitamin D and exercise.
There are many kinds of bone problems:

1. Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis makes your bones weak and more likely to break. Anyone can develop osteoporosis, but it is common in older women. As many as half of all women and a quarter of men older than 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis.
Risk factors include
* Getting older
* Beingsmall and thin
* Having a family history of osteoporosis
* Taking certain medicines
* Being a white or Asian woman
* Having osteopenia, which is low bone mass
Osteoporosis is a silent disease. You might not know you have it until you break a bone. A bone mineral density test is the best way to check your bone health. To keep bones strong, eat a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D,exercise and do not smoke. If needed, medicines can also help.
NIH: National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

2. Osteogenesis Imperfecta
Also called: Brittle bone disease, OI
Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a genetic disorder in which bones break easily. Sometimes the bones break for no known reason. OI can also cause weak muscles, brittle teeth, a curvedspine and hearing loss. The cause is a gene defect that affects how you make collagen, a protein that helps make bones strong. Usually you inherit the faulty gene from a parent. Sometimes, it is due to a mutation, a random gene change.
OI can range from mild to severe and symptoms vary from person to person. A person may have just a few or as many as several hundred fractures in a lifetime. Thereis no cure, but you can manage symptoms. Treatments include exercise, pain medicine, physical therapy, wheelchairs, braces and surgery.
NIH: National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

3. Paget's Disease of Bone
Also called: Osteitis deformans
Paget's disease of bone causes your bones to grow larger and weaker than normal. They also might break easily. Thedisease can lead to other health problems, too, such as arthritis and hearing loss. You can have Paget's disease in any bone, but it is most common in the spine, pelvis, skull and legs. The disease might affect one or several bones, but not your entire skeleton. More men than women have the disease. It is most common in older people.
Many people do not know they have Paget's disease because theirsymptoms are mild. For others, symptoms can include
* Pain
* Enlarged bones
* Broken bones
* Damaged cartilage in joints
No one knows what causes Paget's disease. In some cases, a virus might be responsible. It tends to run in families. You can treat Paget's disease with medicine and sometimes surgery. A good diet and exercise might also help.
NIH: National Institute ofArthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

4. Achondroplasia
Achondroplasia is a disorder of bone growth that causes the most common form of dwarfism. It is characterised by a trunk of normal length, short broad limbs, an enlarged skull, small face and flattened nose bridge. Intelligence and reprductive function are unaffected. Achondroplasia affects about 1 in every 40,000 birthsworldwide.There does not appear to be any racial preference. Males and females are affected equally. It is thought that 80% of all 'little people' have achondroplasia.

5. Fibrous displasia:
Fibrous dysplasia causes abnormal growth or swelling of bone. In some cases, hormone problems and changes in skin colour also occur. The main types of fibrous dysplasia include monostotic fibrous dysplasia,...