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HISPANICS AND OSTEOPOROSIS

Hispanics are the nation’s largest minority group, and they are also the fastest growing group, accounting for about half of the growth in the U.S. population since 2000. Thus Hispanic healthcare is an increasing concern that a lot of doctors are focusing their attention onto.

The growth of the Hispanic population has not been accompanied by an improvement in Hispanic healthcare. Of particular concern is the quality of healthcare Hispanic women receive. There has been a steady increase in hip fractures in Hispanic women over the past twenty years. But it’s not only because there are more Hispanic women to suffer a fracture; it’s also because of inadequate health care for Hispanic women before and after menopause.

Celia Greenberg has a Latino heritage. She says her diet rarely contained any milk or other dairy products. “The only milk I drank was the little that was in my coffee. We ate very small quantities of cheeses and no yogurt at all.”

Still, she didn’t realize what her diet was lacking, until she was diagnosed with osteoporosis. “I was utterly surprised,” Celia said.

It’s a frequent story with healthcare for Hispanics. Less than 10 percent of Hispanic women in one study were getting adequate daily calcium in their diet, with only 13 percent taking calcium supplements to augment the deficit.

Many don’t know much about osteoporosis at all, and don’t get that this is a huge health threat, on par with smoking and obesity.

Dr. Mone Zaidi, Director of the Mt. Sinai Bone Program, says, “Osteoporosis is indeed a very under-treated and under diagnosed disease. And I think this is particularly true amongst the Hispanic population.”

One recent study on Hispanic healthcare showed that Hispanics face a huge fracture risk compared to other ethnicities. The research looked at Black, Hispanic, White, Native American, and Asian women. By age 80, more than one-fifth of women in each ethnic group had Bone Mineral T-scores on bone densitometry of less than 2.5, a diagnosis of osteoporosis. But white and Hispanic women had the highest fracture risk, showing that it is a significant concern of Hispanic healthcare.

One California study, which also collected data on Hispanic healthcare, shows osteoporosis rates are rising, accounting for the nearly 5 percent annual increase of hip fractures in California Hispanic women since 1983. This is in contrast to a 0.6% decrease of hip fractures annually in white women.

Another concern of Hispanic healthcare is that even when Latino women are diagnosed and treated with medications proven to reverse osteoporosis, they don’t stay with it. “Their adherence to treatment is poor, and that is one of the major drawbacks to Hispanic healthcare,” says Dr. Zaidi.

The way to prevent osteoporosis is to ensure adequate calcium and vitamin D intake, do regular weight bearing exercise, and keep track of one’s bone density.

Celia says, “Now I have enough calcium in my diet, and I take extra vitamins.”

The problem is, these recommendations are too often taken too lightly, because the potential disastrous domino effect of osteoporotic fractures is neglected.

“The quality of a person’s life goes down with hip fractures, which constitute a high proportion of fractures. In older people hip fractures could even lead to death,” warns Dr. Zaidi.

Overall, one in every two women and one in every eight men will experience an osteoporotic fracture in their lifetime.

The National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends bone mineral density testing for three categories of women- women 65 and older, women younger than 65 with one or more risk factors (which includes being thin, being a smoker, and having a family history of fractures), and postmenopausal women who have had fractures.

For more information, go to:

www.nof.org

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