Dietary supplements and medical foods for osteopenia and osteoporosis

Assessment of Awareness and Knowledge about Osteoporosis in Relation to Health Prevention among Patients Treated in Osteoporosis Clinics

The increasing incidence of osteoporosis indicates that the disease is a serious public health problem, with about 200 million people being affected worldwide. The aims of this research are to assess the awareness and knowledge about osteoporosis in relation to risk factors, health condition, supplementation used, socio-demographic factors and other variables among osteoporosis patients. The study was conducted in 2016-2018 in osteoporosis clinics in Poland. The study involved 312 patients with a diagnosis of osteoporosis. In the diagnostic survey method, the authors' own questionnaire was used. The results indicate that the more frequent the symptoms associated with the disease, the lower the general self-assessment of the health condition of the respondents (rho = -0.682, p < 0.001). In addition, almost half of the respondents stated that their knowledge of osteoporosis is negligible. Moreover, the use of dietary supplements significantly differentiated respondents in terms of health self-assessed (p < 0.001), and it is noteworthy that users of dietary supplements assessed their health significantly better. We also saw a statistically significant relationship between the self-assessment of knowledge about osteoporosis and the use of dietary supplements (p < 0.001). Accordingly, significantly more respondents rating their knowledge as good or very good used dietary supplements. The conducted study demonstrates the need to educate patients and implement educational programs at central and provincial levels to improve patient knowledge concerning the disease. Supporting adaptation to chronic diseases and appropriate therapeutic management may contribute to improved osteoporosis treatment and enhanced patient quality of life.

Systematic review of the association between climate and hip fractures

This study aims to systematically review epidemiological studies that evaluate the relationship between meteorology and the incidence of hip fracture (HF). After a search in Scopus, PubMed, and Embase, two independent authors assessed the relevance of studies and extracted data for description. From each study, we extracted the geographic and temporal scope, design, study variables (meteorological and related to HF), statistical analysis, and estimated associations. Of a total of 134 works, 20 studies were selected. All use an ecological design but one case-crossover. Most studies have been conducted in northern latitudes. The analysis methodology did not take into account the temporal structure of the data in 10 studies (regression and linear correlations); the rest used Poisson regression (7) and ARIMA model (3). Most studies showed significant positive associations with rainfall, especially in the form of snow: HF relative risk (RR) on days with precipitation vs. days without precipitation that ranged from 1.14 (95 % confidence interval (CI)1.04 to 1.24) to 1.60 (95 % CI 1.06 to 2.41), the temperature, with RR by one degree Celsius decline from 1.012 (95 % CI 1.004 to 1.020) to 1.030 (95 % CI 1.023 to 1.037), and wind (3) RR FC windiest days vs. calm days: 1.32 (95 % CI 1.10 to 1.58) to 1.35 (95 % CI 0.88 to 2.08). This review shows that analytic methods are very heterogeneous and poorly adapted to the temporary nature of the data. Studies confirm a certain seasonality, with more fractures in winter and meaningful relationships with meteorological conditions typical of this season.