4 ms·

Just to tune your smell test, my suspicion is that the vast majority of people over 65 that break their hip are somewhere on the frailty scale from this article

Just to tune your smell test, my suspicion is that the vast majority of people over 65 that break their hip are somewhere on the frailty scale from this article. Healthy people are very unlikely to trip and break their hip.

alkonaut 7y ago
“Once someone who’d likely die from a broken hip breaks their hip, they are likely to die” This passes the smell test without problem.
newnewpdro 7y ago
Post-menopausal women tend to suffer from osteoporosis, their bones are weak and all it takes is a fall. My grandfather who rode a bicycle everywhere into his 80s, never owned an automobile (Europe) broke his hip in a minor fall. He was moved to the USA to get the operation and lived with us permanently afterwards, it was definitely the beginning of the end.
- superpermutat0r 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GHHzIByOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GHHzIByOk Pretty simple way to reverse the osteoporosis.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Give me the RCTs proving that anything actually reverses osteoporosis. Best we have is minor prevention with effect sizes of below 20%. This including special exercises combined with collagen rich diet, D3, K2 and bisphosphonates. Teriparatide shows promise in reversal but effect sizes are low too. The main result is prolonging age until occurrence anyway, not prevention. And definitely not cure.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Are you trolling or do you actually believe that's "reversing osteoporosis"? It's just pushing it back a bit, of course she saw some improvement relative to a completely sedentary condition and that's great. It's not going to stay on that trajectory indefinitely, which is what's implied by "reverse".
    - superpermutat0r 7y ago
      She continues to add weight to the bar to this day.
jacquesm 7y ago
But healthy people do trip. The reason why they don't break anything is because their bones are still fully dense, something that older people usually have issues with unless they took very good care to avoid it. That's not on most people's radar until it is too late.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Another major reason why healthy people don't break anything is because our reflexes work. It's fairly easy to break something if you land wrong, but we use our arms and legs as shock absorbers to avoid breaking anything. With age this becomes harder, and of course more fragile bones make it even worse
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Sure, healthy people do trip, but the last time I tripped and fell over was more than ten years ago. It's not that common. (I was running down a steep hill and pitched forward onto the pavement face first. I ended up scraping one knuckle, leaving a very tiny scar. Yes, that would probably have looked a lot uglier had I somehow been 65 at the time.)
peeters 7y ago
This is true, but I'm guessing what happened is they evaluated > 65 as a group and gave that a mortality rate, when in all likelihood those who broke their hip at 65 probably had a very low mortality rate, despite being lumped in that group. If you could say ~50% of those over 65 that break their hip will die within a year, you could honestly probably say ~50% of those over 30 that break their hip will die within a year, since the group of 30- to 65-year-olds breaking their hips would be a blip in the data.
- sambroner 7y ago
  After posting I was curious so I looked around for data on who fractures a hip. All I found was data from one UK Hospital saying around 10% of broken hips are from people younger than 65. If that extrapolates out, then you may be right. Because of the demographic that breaks a hip, a shockingly large group of people who break a hip die within a year.

alkonaut 7y ago

“Once someone who’d likely die from a broken hip breaks their hip, they are likely to die” This passes the smell test without problem.

newnewpdro 7y ago

Post-menopausal women tend to suffer from osteoporosis, their bones are weak and all it takes is a fall. My grandfather who rode a bicycle everywhere into his 80s, never owned an automobile (Europe) broke his hip in a minor fall. He was moved to the USA to get the operation and lived with us permanently afterwards, it was definitely the beginning of the end.

superpermutat0r 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GHHzIByOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GHHzIByOk Pretty simple way to reverse the osteoporosis.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Give me the RCTs proving that anything actually reverses osteoporosis. Best we have is minor prevention with effect sizes of below 20%. This including special exercises combined with collagen rich diet, D3, K2 and bisphosphonates. Teriparatide shows promise in reversal but effect sizes are low too. The main result is prolonging age until occurrence anyway, not prevention. And definitely not cure.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Are you trolling or do you actually believe that's "reversing osteoporosis"? It's just pushing it back a bit, of course she saw some improvement relative to a completely sedentary condition and that's great. It's not going to stay on that trajectory indefinitely, which is what's implied by "reverse".
  - superpermutat0r 7y ago
    She continues to add weight to the bar to this day.

jacquesm 7y ago

But healthy people do trip. The reason why they don't break anything is because their bones are still fully dense, something that older people usually have issues with unless they took very good care to avoid it. That's not on most people's radar until it is too late.

wongarsu 7y ago
Another major reason why healthy people don't break anything is because our reflexes work. It's fairly easy to break something if you land wrong, but we use our arms and legs as shock absorbers to avoid breaking anything. With age this becomes harder, and of course more fragile bones make it even worse
thaumasiotes 7y ago
Sure, healthy people do trip, but the last time I tripped and fell over was more than ten years ago. It's not that common. (I was running down a steep hill and pitched forward onto the pavement face first. I ended up scraping one knuckle, leaving a very tiny scar. Yes, that would probably have looked a lot uglier had I somehow been 65 at the time.)

peeters 7y ago

This is true, but I'm guessing what happened is they evaluated > 65 as a group and gave that a mortality rate, when in all likelihood those who broke their hip at 65 probably had a very low mortality rate, despite being lumped in that group. If you could say ~50% of those over 65 that break their hip will die within a year, you could honestly probably say ~50% of those over 30 that break their hip will die within a year, since the group of 30- to 65-year-olds breaking their hips would be a blip in the data.

sambroner 7y ago
After posting I was curious so I looked around for data on who fractures a hip. All I found was data from one UK Hospital saying around 10% of broken hips are from people younger than 65. If that extrapolates out, then you may be right. Because of the demographic that breaks a hip, a shockingly large group of people who break a hip die within a year.