Page 34 - Healthy (March - April 2020)

BREAKING

POINT

Osteoporosis is common
in women over 50, but is

often only diagnosed after
a broken bone. In the
spirit of prevention, nurse
consultant Sarah Leyland

asks the questions that
will help you assess – and
reduce – your risk

WHAT’S YOUR ARE YOU COVERED UP?
BODY TYPE? Think about your exposure to sunlight.
1 Osteoporosis is a progressive disease that 2 If you’ve had skin cancer and you’re being
causes bones to become thin and fragile as you incredibly careful, if you’re culturally covering
get older, making them more likely to break. up, or if you live in Scotland, where there is less
You could say one of the biggest risk factors is sunshine, consider a supplement. One study
being female, as it’s four times more likely found that in 2018, people living in southern
among women. During menopause, women lose England were exposed to suicient vitamin D, THE EXPERT
oestrogen, making us lose bone mass rapidly. via sunlight, for 28 more days than those living
SARAH LEYLAND is an
Additionally, women are usually smaller, with in Scotland. You can also top up your vitamin
iner bones, so any loss of bone has a greater D via your diet – ind it in oily ish, fortiied osteoporosis nurse consultant
at the Royal Osteoporosis
impact. Being under- or overweight is also bad foods and egg yolks. Everyone in the UK should Society, with over 20 years
for bones. Ethnicity plays a role, too – African- consider taking a supplement throughout winter,
experience providing
Caribbeans tend to have bigger, stronger bones but avoid huge doses as research shows this can information and support
than Asians and Caucasians. be damaging. Stick to 10mcg, or 400 IU, a day.

34 healthy-magazine.co.uk