Antiaging Checkup: Bone Age and Osteoporosis

“Bone age” is a term used to express the degree of bone maturity in terms of age. In other words, it is used to determine whether the growth and development of bones is age-appropriate, delayed, or precocious. Therefore, the bone age derived from the bone age evaluation criteria by hand X-ray is a good indicator that finely and objectively expresses the degree of maturity, but it is not an indicator of bones used in anti-aging checkups aiming to delay or prevent aging phenomena that progress with age after adulthood. On the other hand, in the body, aging cells are routinely removed and replaced with new cells, a metabolic process known as antiaging. While the intestinal epithelial cells, which are replaced in a few days, take the shortest time, it takes the longest time, several months, to replace the new bone tissue to make it a sturdy bone that can withstand load. This is the most prominent antiaging in the body, especially called bone remodeling. However, no indicator has yet been found to capture the entire picture of this bone remodeling, which is the therapeutic area [1]. After reaching the young adult mean (YAM), bone density decreases with age and menopause in women, but the degree of this phenomenon allows estimation of the degree of bone aging and fragility. Even if you are careful about bone aging by measuring bone density, even if you exercise moderately, even if you have no symptoms, you cannot deny the possibility of osteoporosis. First, you need to measure bone density in osteoporosis screening and check the current state of your bones. The standard method for measuring bone density is the DXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) method for the lumbar spine or proximal femur total, and this should be used as much as possible. Since vertebral deformities appear with age, the accuracy is lacking, so the proximal femur total (not the neck), which is the international standard as a measurement site, is desirable after the 70s. Forearm DXA method and second metacarpal MD (microdensitometry) method can also diagnose, but there is a possibility of delay in early diagnosis because they are peripheral bones. Also, the QUS (quantitative ultrasound) method, which measures the calcaneus with an ultrasound index, can screen, but cannot diagnose. The fact that the metacarpal and calcaneus are not bones that fracture due to osteoporosis speaks to their diagnostic value. In the case of Japanese women over 50, the lifetime fracture rate is highest at 37% for the vertebrae [3], followed by 22% for the proximal femur [4]. This shows the significance of measurements in the lumbar spine and proximal femur, which have the highest fracture probability due to osteoporosis.