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Last Updated on September 15, 2023 by Aditi Gangal
Both osteoarthritis and osteoporosis are conditions that can affect a person’s musculoskeletal health and lead to a degradation of their physical well-being. Musculoskeletal health is how well our muscles, bones, joints, and connective tissues work together. Sometimes, these body parts can have problems that make it hard for us to move and do things we want to do. There are over 150 different problems like this that can happen, including osteoporosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that about 1.71 billion people worldwide have musculoskeletal conditions. This is a lot of people affected. This article discusses about osteoarthritis and osteoporosis in detail.
What is osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is a condition that affects the joints in your body, causing pain, stiffness, and difficulty in moving. It occurs when the cartilage, which acts as a cushion between the bones in a joint, breaks down and wears away. As the cartilage wears away, the bones in the joint can rub against each other, causing pain and inflammation. Osteoarthritis can affect any joint in the body, but it most commonly affects the knees, hips, and hands. The condition usually develops gradually over time and is more common in older adults, but it can also affect younger people who have had joint injuries or other health problems.
What is osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is a condition that causes your bones to become weak and brittle, making them more likely to break or fracture. It happens when your body loses too much bone tissue or doesn’t make enough new bone tissue. This can happen due to various factors, such as aging, hormonal changes, lack of physical activity, or a poor diet. Osteoporosis is often called the “silent disease” because it doesn’t usually cause any symptoms until a bone breaks. It can affect any bone in the body, but the most common areas are the hip, spine, and wrist. Osteoporosis is more common in women than men, and it is important to get regular bone density tests to detect and treat it early.
Can I have osteoporosis and osteoarthritis at the same time?
Possible. Both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis are different health conditions. However, a person can have both at the same time. In some cases, osteoarthritis can occur as a complication of osteoporosis. Moreover, osteoporosis can cause frequent fractures, so it is considered more serious than osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition of the joints in which there is damage to the cartilage. Osteoporosis is a generalized loss of bone density that is not limited to the joints. There is evidence of a complex relationship between both these conditions, and therefore, they frequently occur together. It is not definitively known if one condition causes the other.
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