Osteoporosis mainly affects women after the menopause, but men are not exempt either. To prevent it, one must start young by adopting an active lifestyle, following a dietary healthy and rich in calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D, avoiding smoking and alcohol, exposing themselves to the sun regularly (without excess). In short, the usual good health rules, which many consider boring and difficult to follow. But he is wrong: especially at the dinner table, protecting bone health can also be very pleasant. For example, with these recipes. . Enjoy your meal!
bones
How to help the body regrow bone tissue
For the first time, scientists have been able to study how well synthetic bone grafts withstand the stresses they receive during the daily lives of patients to whom they are implanted, and how quickly they help bone regrowth and repair.
The team in question, which examined in microscopic detail what takes place between the graft and the bone, was coordinated by Gianluca Tozzi, one of the many “brains” that have fled abroad, who after graduating from the University of Bologna is now director of the Zeiss Global Centre at the University of Portsmouth (UK). The researcher hopes the result will help find ways to improve the body’s ability to regrow its own bones and enable orthopedic surgeons to predict the success of a synthetic graft.
“Every three seconds,” Tozzi explained to ScienceDaily. A person incurs a fracture due to bone fragility. In addition to breaking easily, brittle bones are also more difficult to repair, especially when the defect area is large. It is vital to understand what happens at that interface where the bone meets the graft, because then we can better engineer the sophisticated materials used. Bones are very complex biological tissues, and a synthetic bone substitute must have specific requirements to allow blood flow and encourage new bone growth.”.
New generation synthetic grafts have the potential to be resorbed by the body over time, allowing gradual bone regeneration at the site where the defect is, but biomaterials that degrade too quickly do not give enough time for new bone to grow, and those that degrade too slowly can cause mechanical instability at the implant site.
The team succeeded in the feat thanks to a device, located in the Zeiss Global Centre, that performs a special X-ray tomography (synchrotron X-ray computed tomography – SR-XCT): “In this way,” said Tozzi, “we can predict the clinical outcome of biomaterials in a living body, significantly improving our knowledge.
Peña Fernández M, Dall’Ara E et al. Full-Field Strain Analysis of Bone-Biomaterial Systems Produced by the Implantation of Osteoregenerative Biomaterials in an Ovine Model. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering 2019 5 (5), 2543-2554.
What to do in case of a fracture
X-ray is the only way to know if a bone is fractured. If there is any doubt, it is necessary to treat the patient as if he or she had a fractured bone.
- Treat the patient gently, removing clothing covering the affected part.
- Examine the affected area and try to see if the bone is deformed. Ask the patient what the pain is and how the injury was caused.
- Control circulation and innervation using CSM, i.e., circulation, sensation and movement. To check circulation appreciate the radial wrist for upper limbs or the posterior ankle wrist for lower limbs. Check for sensitivity by touching the patient with your fingers and asking them to report when they feel the touch. The ability to move, on the other hand, allows the presence of nerve injury to be checked.
- Immobilize the injured party. Most fractures are minor and therefore do not need to be reduced. In case it has to be reduced try to do it without CSM. If the pulse does not return to normal, take the patient to the hospital immediately. No attempt should be made to reduce fractures involving the spine, shoulder, elbow, wrist, or knee. Various materials such as cardboard, wooden splints and the patient’s own body can be used to immobilize the injured part by tying the fractured part with a healthy part. In case of a joint injury, immobilize the bone segments distal and proximal to the joint.
Source: Mediserve‘s Pocket Guide to First Aid.
Dislocation
A dislocation occurs when there is permanent displacement of the bony ends of a joint. The symptoms of dislocation are similar to that of a fracture, so intense pain, deformity, swelling, and inability to move. It is necessary, first of all, to check the CSM. Immobilize the part as if it were fractured and send the patient to the emergency room.
Source: Mediserve‘s Pocket Guide to First Aid.
Over65: more movement to protect bones
Regular physical activity is good for all ages. E even if you are no longer very young and have never been a great sportsman, it is not never too late to start. Especially if you are a woman, the small effort of willpower and modest effort will be repaid by increased well-being general, from a feeling of greater physical strength and vitality, from muscles more tonics and, not least, by improving balance. All factors that contribute not only to improving the quality of life and preserving autonomy, but also to reduce the risk of falls and fractures associated with bone depletion and osteoporosis, which after the age of 70 can have particularly negatives. This is confirmed by a recent study by theWomen’s Health Initiative .
Hip osteoarthritis: symptoms and treatment
To better explain what is meant by hip osteoarthritis, I will quickly review the different types of this condition:
- The idiopathic or primitive form typical of old age is the consequence of an imbalance between degeneration and regeneration of the cartilage lining with its progressive wear and tear. Later, the pathological process progressively involves synovial tissue and subchondral bone (this is the layer of bone underneath the articular cartilage) until, in severe cases, it leads to joint collapse.
- Secondary forms, on the other hand, have an earlier onset. Their cause may be post-traumatic, or consequent to congenital malformations or diseases arising in adolescence or more rarely a consequence of arthritic diseases or dysmetabolic diseases.
Herniated disc: how to treat it
Herniated disc is also known as “herniated or prolapsed disc.” This affliction consists of a ruptured vertebral disc that, upon opening, causes disc material to leak out and compress the surrounding spinal nerves. Some doctors believe that one solution may be surgical replacement of the diseased disc with an artificial one.
For some adults, pain and symptoms due to herniated discs are quite common problems. The spine is made up of multiple anatomical structures, including muscles, bones, ligaments and joints. Each structure has nerve endings that can detect pain when it arises.
