Do you know your bone health status? Do you know if you have poor bone health? I’m almost 58 and have osteoporosis. Diagnosed about 7 years ago after one of my parathyroid glands grew a benign tumour, causing it to be grossly over-active - a condition called hyperparathyroidism. So bone health is a topic close to my heart.
With 67% of Australians over the age of 50 (both men and women) estimated to have sub-optimal bone health, it should be your high on your priority list of things to know about your health as you age (Healthy Bones Australia). And Australia is not unique. You will find similar statistics in many other parts of the world like Europe, North America and Asia.
Why should you care about your bone health status? Becasue when we measure for bone health we are measuring for bone fracture risk. Poorer bone health substancially increases our chance of fracturing bones that not only significally impact our mobility and independence, they can result in us dying sooner too. 1 in 4 hip fractures will result in death within 12 months of that fracture (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare).
My DEXA Scan Results Were Misleading: Reading a tonne of information on the subject AND having had wildly different DEXA* scan results (one of which my endocrinologist said we couldn’t use because of its unrealistic difference) I started searching for other ways to measure my bone health status more reliably. *(DEXA(Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry), is a medical imaging test that measures bone density and is the scan typically done when assessing bone health status).
That’s when I discovered REMS (Radiofrequency Echographic MultiSpectrometry) scanning. It looks like an ultrasound machine and is used in a similar way. Not only did it give me a very clear understanding of my Bone Density, it also gave me an understanding of my Bone Strength (bone quality) AND it also gave me a Fragility Score - the likelihood of my bones fracturing because of their strength and density. More information than I got from DEXA. And because of the way in which the machine software is set up, the risk of inaccurate readings is significantly reduced.
That’s why I invited Dr David Tognarini to join me on the Midlife Unfiltered podcast. He has brought this technology into Australia. Technology that has been in use in clinical practice Italy and parts of Europe for about 6 years and in the USA and Canada for a bit less than that.
We talk about bone health and how REMS technology can help us better understand our bone health status, our fracture risk and because of its mobility (this device can be put in the overhead compartment of a plane!) has the ability to help those in circumstances and situations where getting to a DEXA scanner is not possible or very difficult.
It’s a great chat I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from. Your bone health matters. It’s often not diagnosed until it’s too late to do something about beyond taking medications. As a woman, we are at greater risk of poor bone health due to our 10-20% bone mass loss in per-menopause and menopause years.
If you haven’t yet, get a bone scan done and know your bone health status NOW. Future you will thank you for it.
Enjoy the show!
Anita xx
Research Links:
Technology like this takes years to develope and effectiveness and reliability proven. Here are links to research papers that discuss this in further detail.
All the key plications below and also other papers in specific patient populations are listed here:
https://echolight.com.au/specifications/
For specific references:
TGA Registration Certificate: https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/artg/344830
Recent (2024) European Consensus statement –
Fuggle N et al 2024. REMS in the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis: state of the art. Aging Clin Exp Res 36, 135. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40520-024-02784-w#citeas
Fragility Score Prospective study
Pisani P et al (2023). Fragility Score: a REMS-based indicator for the prediction of incident fragility fractures at 5 years. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2023 Apr;35(4):763-773. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10115670/
To Find a REMS Clinic in Australia:
https://echolight.com.au/booking/
Bone Compass clinics are here – www.bonecompass.com.au
To Find a REMS Clinic near you:
To find REMS clinics where ever you live in the world ‘Google’ search REMS Echolight technology and your city/country.
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