[Prevention of osteoporosis].

The European Parliament presented June 10th in Brussels the 'Osteoporosis Report in EU--Means for Prevention'. It was emphasized that in the EU more than 3500 million Ecu have to be spent for hospitalization and that more than 500,000 hospitals beds are being used by osteoporotic patients. According to some calculations this number will double within the next 50 years. The EU has set up eight steps to be considered, e.g. have densitometric measurements available for persons with high risk and have these measurement paid by the insurances to further finance and support research for the very important areas of prevention and treatment. One distinguishes between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of osteoporosis. Primary prevention aims at reaching at adolescent age a peak bone mass as high as possible. Secondary prevention aims at reducing bone loss peri- and postmenopausal. The tertiary prevention with manifest osteoporosis aims at preventing fractures. Emphasis of the primary prevention is, besides a sufficient calcium intake, to omit risk factors; with secondary prevention the use of medical treatments such as estrogens/gestagens, bisphosphonates, and recently also SERMs is applied. The tertiary prevention tries mostly to reduce the femur fractures. In addition to drugs such as vitamin D/calcium, vitamin D metabolites and bisphosphonates it is very important to create 'a fall-proof home'. Also very useful are hip protectors.