From Babies to Bones

The phrase, “I've fallen and I can’t get up” has fueled the jokes of late night comedians for years. But it’s no joke for Dr. Eva Olah, a 19-year veteran of obstetrics/gynecology and a partner in the Center for Women’s Care, a Norwalk Hospital physician practice, for the past seven years. She is a menopause, incontinence and osteoporosis specialist in the three-doctor obstetrician and gynecology practice with offices in Wilton and Norwalk, and she cites a very sobering statistic: every year the same number of women die from complications from hip fractures as from breast cancer. That’s approximately 40,000 women in the United States alone.

Dr. Olah is a member of the Own the Bone task force at Norwalk Hospital. Part of the American Orthopaedic Association’s Own the Bone initiative, the group helps doctors and patients with education and treatment suggestions to specifically prevent secondary fractures often caused by bone density loss. Who is at high risk? Post-menopausal women.

 “Once a woman hits menopause, her body stops producing the estrogen that’s needed for strong bones,” says Dr. Olah. Calcium and Vitamin D can help. “For calcium, 1200 milligrams per day is the recommended dose. Much of the requirement, she says, can be met by diet alone.

  Everyone has a deficiency in Vitamin D,” says the doctor, “Me included.”A recent study brought the daily Vitamin D recommendation down from 1,000 international units (IUs) to 600 per day. But a surefire way to get enough Vitamin D is to spend 20 minutes a day in the sun without sunscreen. No dermatologist would recommend this and neither would Dr. Olah, as she herself wears sunscreen rain or shine. “You could drink 10 glasses of milk a day,” adds Dr. Olah, “or eat 50 eggs to reach the right amount of Vitamin D.” Supplements seem the better option to receive the recommended dose of Vitamin D and preserve bone density.

Dr. Olah says she’s finding far less severe cases of osteoporosis among her patients, in part due to earlier diagnosis. “I think we are more proactive looking for possible osteoporosis. There’s a drug, an injection given once a day, that I prescribe for patients with more serious cases of osteoporosis,” says Dr. Olah. “I haven’t prescribed that to anyone in over a year.”  

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