It is widely recognized that osteoporosis represents a major public health problem due to its association with liability to fragile fractures. The study aims to investigate prevalence and risk factors for osteoporosis and/or osteopenia in women aged 40 years and above in Saudi Arabia. PubMed and EBSCO Information Services were chosen as the search databases for the publications used within the study. Restriction to the last 10 years and the English language due to unavailable resources for translation were used. Among healthy Saudi women, 40-80 years of age, 29.4%-36.6% were diagnosed as having osteoporosis, whereas 24.8%-40% were diagnosed with osteopenia. Risk factors for osteopenia and osteoporosis might be due to lack of literacy or primary education, prolonged history of fractures, no drinking of laban, as well as a prolonged period of fertility, lacking parity, menopausal period, gynecological age, and the presence of comorbidity, especially hypertension and diabetes mellitus. The study concludes that up to 36.6% of females were diagnosed as having osteoporosis, whereas up to 40% of females were diagnosed with osteopenia. Increasing age, oral hypoglycemic agents, higher soft drinks consumption, reduced exercise, limited intake of milk and dairy products, calcium and vitamin D supplementation, no literacy or primary education, history of fractures, not drinking laban, prolonged fertility period, lacking parity, menopausal duration, gynecological age, and the presence of comorbidity were determined to be some of the risk factors for osteopenia and osteoporosis.
Key words: Osteoporosis, women, epidemiology of osteoporosis osteopenia, risk factors, Saudi Arabia
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