He also looked at the need for a national screening programme in Ireland to combat the disease. With people living longer and children taking less and less exercise, action must be taken on prevention or the situation will only get worse. Anything short of a fully resourced screening programme is inadequate in the fight against osteoporosis in Ireland. He told the seminar that there were less than 15 DEXA scanning machines available to the 235,000 women at risk in Ireland. Plus, the cost of 60 to 80 per scan puts it out of reach for many women.
Men also develop osteoporosis and fractures but at a rate three to four times less than women.