Louise Chang, MD If you think of your body as a building, your
bones are the framing. Without strong bones the whole thing
would collapse. And that's a good analogy for what happens when
we don't take good care of our bones. Over time, the body loses
more and more bone, until we develop osteoporosis and it
"collapses," in the form of bones fracturing. About half of all
women over 50, and about one out of every four men, will break a
bone because of osteoporosis, a condition of weakening bone that
affects about 10 million Americans, with some 34 million more at
risk. During childhood and adolescence, your body makes bone
tissue (formation) faster than you lose it (resorption). By the
time you're 18 to 20 years old, you've built up about 90% of all
the bone you'll ever have. Most people continue to build bone
faster than they lose it until about age 30, a point that's
known as “peak bone mass.” From then on, the rate of bone
building slows down and the rate of bone loss picks up. You
can't get back bone once it