From Tony Waldron, St Mary's Hospital
London
The prevalence of osteoporosis may be increasing but it is
certainly not a modern disease
(15 December, p 42).
Although there is no satisfactory definition
of osteoporosis in human remains, evidence of extreme bone loss is found in
individuals from all periods of human history. This evidence includes cortical
thinning, loss of the thin bars of bony tissue called trabeculae, the occurrence
of typical osteoporotic fractures in the spine and femoral neck, and, much less
frequently, fractures of the distal radius and ulna.
We don’t yet have reliable information on the prevalence of osteoporosis in
early populations, but this is clearly needed before we can decide how much more
common the condition is at present. One explanation for the relatively few cases
in the past may simply be that men and women did not live long enough to develop
it.
Several other supposedly new diseases—rheumatoid arthritis and Paget’s
disease, for example—turn out to be nothing of the sort once the evidence
from past populations is properly assessed.
Advertisement
