According to the Australian institute of health and welfare and Australian Bureau of Statistics an estimated 924,000 people reported they suffered osteoporosis in 2017-18. This data is self-reported, with many cases undiagnosed and not reported.
However, the incidence and prevalence of osteoporosis is much larger than that.
An Osteoporosis Australia report from 2012 indicate 2 out of 3 people over 50 have osteoporosis or osteopenia (the early stages of this condition), this was 4.74 million people. It was estimated to climb to 6.3 million people by 2022.
I wonder where we’re at in 2023?
Rewind back to 2013 and OP resulted in 1 fracture every 3.6 minutes and is projected to be about 1 fracture every 2.8 minutes now.
So by this stage of the blog someone in Australia has suffered an osteoporotic fracture, and by the end of reading this at least 5 fractures have been created by this condition.
That is scary!
What is scarier is that it is estimated that 1.6 million fractures per year will be due to osteoporosis and osteopenia, costing $3.84 billion in direct and indirect costs to the patient and health care system.
1 in 4 men and 2 in 5 women over the age of 50 will experience a fracture as a result of osteoporosis.
In the first 5 years following a minimal traumatic osteoporotic fracture, a review of the participants of the study by the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study found that 26% of women and 37% of men died.
If a repeat fracture occurred the risk of death increased to 75% in men and 50% for women.
The fatality rate for an acute osteoporotic hip fracture above 75 years was 20.7% in men, 7.5% in women.
Get this, up to 90% of men are not even aware they have osteoporosis.
No wonder us blokes die more.
These are some crazy statistics don’t you think?
