The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) released its new Clinician's Guide to Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis representing a major breakthrough in the way healthcare providers evaluate and treat people with low bone mass or osteoporosis and the risk of fractures. NOF's new Clinician's Guide introduces guidelines beyond Caucasian postmenopausal women to include African-American, Asian, Latina and other postmenopausal women, and addresses men age 50 and older for the first time.

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem that has both a medical and economic impact in the U.S. Fractures caused by either osteoporosis or low bone mass can lead to chronic pain, disability and even death, as well as psychological symptoms, including depression. Each year broken bones due to low bone mass or osteoporosis cause over 432,000 hospital admissions, almost 2.5 million medical office visits and about 180,000 nursing home admissions.

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This web-based tool allows you to determine your 10-year risk for fracture. It's free of charge and takes about a minute to enter age, bone mineral density (BMD), height and weight, and to click (yes/no) on 7 questions. The 10-Year Fracture Risk Calculator estimates 10-year fracture risk for postmenopausal women aged 45-85 years who are not receiving treatment for osteoporosis. This Fracture Risk Calculator is based on the World Health Organization (WHO) fracture risk assessment model along with the cost-effectiveness analysis for the United States.

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