Osteoporosis & Fracture Risk Check

Osteoporosis means bones have lost density and strength, so they break more easily — often from a minor fall or bump that wouldn't hurt a healthy bone. It's common and largely silent: many people have no idea until they break a wrist, hip, or spine bone. Menopause matters because estrogen helps protect bone, and the drop in estrogen around and after menopause speeds up bone loss — the years right after menopause are when it happens fastest. That's why bone health is such a natural companion to the menopause transition, and why the risk factors and screening ages below are built around it. The good news is that osteoporosis is very treatable, and a lot of fracture risk is preventable, once you know where you stand.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends osteoporosis screening for all women 65 and older (a Grade B recommendation), and for postmenopausal women younger than 65 who are at increased risk based on their risk factors (also Grade B). For men, the USPSTF found the evidence insufficient to recommend for or against routine screening (an 'I' statement) — that means it's an individual conversation with a clinician, especially if you have risk factors, not that men don't get osteoporosis. The test itself is a DXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) scan: a quick, painless, very low-dose X-ray of the hip and spine that measures bone density. This tool tells you whether that conversation fits you — it can't order or replace the scan.

No — and that's deliberate. FRAX is a validated calculator that estimates your 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture and of a hip fracture, using your age, sex, and risk factors (and, when available, your bone-density result from a DXA scan). It gives an actual percentage, and clinicians use those percentages to guide decisions. We don't reproduce the FRAX algorithm or its numbers here, because doing it properly needs the validated tool and usually a DXA result. Instead, this check walks the same well-known clinical risk factors and gives you a plain-language read plus the right question to ask. To get a real FRAX estimate, your clinician can run it, or you can use the FRAX tool linked from the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation.

The best-established ones are: older age; being postmenopausal, and especially an early menopause (periods stopping before about 45, whether naturally or after surgery to remove the ovaries or cancer treatment); a previous fragility fracture (a broken bone as an adult from a minor fall); a parent who broke a hip; low body weight or a small, thin frame; current smoking; regularly drinking more than two alcoholic drinks a day; long-term oral steroid (glucocorticoid) tablets; rheumatoid arthritis; and other conditions or medicines that weaken bone, such as an over-treated thyroid, coeliac disease and other causes of malabsorption, or type 1 diabetes. Any single strong factor can be enough to change screening advice; lifestyle factors count more when they stack up. This tool checks the ones a short questionnaire can capture — your clinician may know of others from your history.

The everyday basics do a lot of the work, at any age: get enough calcium and vitamin D (the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation publishes recommended daily amounts by age — food first, supplements to fill gaps); do regular weight-bearing exercise (walking, jogging, dancing, stairs) plus muscle-strengthening and balance work, which also cuts the falls that cause fractures; don't smoke; and keep alcohol moderate. Preventing falls matters as much as bone density later in life — good lighting, removing trip hazards, checking your vision, and reviewing medicines that cause dizziness all help. For people at higher risk, a clinician may discuss menopause hormone therapy (which also helps protect bone) or bone-specific medicines. None of that needs to wait for a diagnosis — but the medicines and hormone therapy are decisions to make with a clinician.

Yes. This tool runs entirely in your browser: your answers are scored on your own device and are never sent to a server, saved, or shared — close the tab and they're gone. It's general educational information based on published USPSTF guidance, the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation, and MedlinePlus; it isn't medical advice, a diagnosis, a FRAX score, or a substitute for a DXA scan and a conversation with a licensed clinician.