Pathophysiology of age-related bone loss and osteoporosis

With the aging of the population, osteoporosis is an enormous and growing public health problem. Considerable work over the past decade has identified the role of age-related changes in sex steroid production or availability as playing a key role in mediating age-related bone loss in both sexes. Increasing serum parathyroid hormone levels with age also contribute to the late phase of bone loss in women and likely also in men. Superimposed on these fundamental mechanisms are a host of other factors, some present only in subsets of individuals, which contribute to increased bone loss and fracture risk.