For this year’s World Osteoporosis Day (October 20), IOF calls on the public and health professionals around the world to take action for bone health and osteoporosis prevention. The global campaign, launched in more than six languages, urges people of all ages to take three essential steps to set a strong foundation for healthy bones and muscles:
1. Ensure you have enough vitamin D intake (through safe exposure to sunlight, diet, and supplementation if required, particularly if you are over 60)
2. Eat a calcium and protein-rich diet
3. Keep active with daily weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening physical activity
Osteoporosis is often called a ‘silent disease’ because it has few symptoms. However, unless the disease is treated, the skeleton becomes progressively weaker and more fragile, leaving people at serious risk of debilitating fractures.
Around the world, at least one in three women and one in five men over the age of fifty will suffer a fracture caused by weak bones. Fractures result in pain, debilitation and loss of quality of life. One in three seniors who suffers a hip fracture becomes physically impaired and loses his or her ability to live independently. At least one in five will die within a year of the fracture. Vertebral (spine) fractures can cause extreme pain, long or short term disability, dowager’s hump, and significant loss in quality of life. Without treatment, the risk of suffering new fractures is high.
Make sure you take action for your bone health! Osteoporosis and fracture prevention must be a priority for us all.
Osteoporosis report pdf click here
Contact details for International Osteoporosis Foundation address phone fax & website
Name: International Osteoporosis Foundation (INF) Address: 9, rue Juste-Olivier Nyon CH-1260 Switzerland Telephone: 22 994 0100 Fax: 22 994 0101 Website: www.iofbonehealth.org
About International Osteoporosis Foundation - INF
Established in 1998, the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) is a registered not for profit organization dedicated to:- motivating - individuals to take action to diagnose, prevent and treat osteoporosis
- raising - awareness and increasing understanding of osteoporosis
- supporting - osteoporosis societies throughout the world in order to maximize their effectiveness
- nurturing and expanding the International Osteoporosis Foundation network of osteoporosis societies worldwide
- promoting - innovations within the medical community and improving care
- lobbying - for changes to policy in countries throughout the world with the aim for diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis to become standard
- expanding partnerships with other organizations working in similar fields to the the IOF
