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Friday, December 23, 2011

Diabetes and Hip Fracture Risk

Diabetes can make one at risk of getting a fracture to the hips. All the tempting food on the table does not make it any easier. We are still eating too much. And this can make us vulnerable to broken hip. Women who are undergoing menopause with uncontrolled blood sugar are more liable to develop a broken hip.

So researchers investigated the tool created by the World Health Organization known as the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool or FRAX. This tool makes use of algorithms found on a person’s risk to develop hip fracture along with the result of the bone density exam.

FRAX was developed by WHO in order to find what bone fracture to expect to help the doctors make a prediction on a person’s likelihood of breaking his hip or fracturing the shoulder, spine and forearm as a result of osteoporosis.

For menopausal women though, especially if they are not on HRT, the doctors are now using FRAX to access their risk to develop a hip fracture. But researchers in Canada’s University of Waterloo in Ontario begged to disagree. They found out in their new study that the most widely used tool FRAX is not that accurate.

FRAX, the researchers said, miscalculates the risk of a woman in getting her hip fractured and it is even worse if diabetes is in the picture. You see, the diabetics are found to have a 59% increased chance of getting a fractured hip and the worst part of the finding was that they were less likely to take medication in order to lower the risk or prevent it from happening.

The result of the study conducted in Netherlands is even scarier. Apparently, diabetic women who have an increased likelihood to develop fractured hip increased their risk even more when their blood sugar is poorly controlled.


There are three things they need to know. They should get a bone density test at age 50 to determine the likelihood of getting a fractured bone. Secondly if their doctor uses FRAX, their risk even gets higher, And third, it is important to keep the blood sugar under control.

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