Osteoporosis makes bones thin and porous, so they break more easily. It’s often called the ‘silent thief’ because bone loss happens with no symptoms at all — many people only find out after a fall or a fracture.
Bone is alive
Your skeleton isn’t inert scaffolding. It’s living tissue, constantly torn down and rebuilt by two crews of cells: osteoclasts that remove old bone and osteoblasts that lay down new bone. With age, the removal crew starts to outpace the rebuilding crew.
About 90% of your peak bone mass is built by age 20, and the rest by about 30. From the mid-30s we slowly lose bone — and for women, that loss speeds up sharply at menopause, to as much as 2–5% per year.
Why fractures matter so much
A broken bone in later life isn’t a minor setback. Around 1 in 2 women and up to 1 in 4 men over 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. Hip fractures are especially serious — they can cost independence, and the statistics around them are sobering. Preventing that first fracture is the whole game.