Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Hindmarsh for bringing this important motion to the House. It is a motion that identifies a disease that affects many Australians, particularly Australians over the age of 60—although the risk factor starts kicking in at around the age of 50. Twenty-three per cent of women over the age of 50 and six per cent of men over the age of 50 are living with osteoporosis. As we all know, 50 is not old in this era. By the time they get to 60 years of age, one-third of men have had a fracture caused by osteoporosis, and half of all women over the age of 60 have suffered a similar fracture. If you put this in health terms, you have to acknowledge that this is a very significant illness. It is one that affects so many Australians. It is one of those diseases that, I think, have largely been swept under the carpet. Not enough is known about it, yet it affects so many people.

Osteoporosis is when bones become fragile and brittle, leading to a high risk of fractures. Bones lose their minerals, such as calcium, and the body cannot replace them at the same rate that they leave the body. The most common sites for fractures are the hips, the spine, the wrists, the ribs, the pelvis and the upper arms. My mother-in-law has had a number of fractures to her hip. Also, my mother was diagnosed with osteoporosis and that led to her having some fractures. This is quite significant because if your parents have osteoporosis you are much more likely to suffer from the disease.

There are steps we can take to address it, but I think I need to also point out that about 50 per cent of people with one fracture will have another. Once a person has a second fracture they are much more likely to suffer a cascading effect with fractures. It is essential that osteoporosis paretic fractures are identified and treated as quickly as possible, because once they have been identified the people who suffer from osteoporosis can be put on appropriate treatment.

Family history, medical conditions such as taking steroids, rheumatoid arthritis, the thyroid and a number of other diseases can make it much more likely that a person will develop osteoporosis, and it has different indicators for men and women. Your lifestyle contributes to it: smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of calcium, lack of sunlight, which may cause vitamin D deficiency, and a sedentary lifestyle. I think vitamin D deficiency is a very important issue to identify. These days we are encouraged to use blockout sunscreen and that is blocking out vitamin D. There has been a large increase in the number of people who have been identified as suffering from vitamin D deficiency. This needs to be made public.

The ways to prevent osteoporosis are with calcium and calcium absorption, which is where vitamin D comes in, because vitamin D facilitates calcium absorption. People need to increase their calcium intake and make sure they have food that is rich in calcium. Also, I must not miss the importance of exercise, particularly weight-bearing exercise and resistance exercise, which are essential.

I congratulate the member for Hindmarsh for bringing this motion to the House. I encourage all members to go back to their electorates and publicise the issue of osteoporosis and how to prevent it.

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