Over diagnosis—Osteoporosis

This is a series of key points from the 2013 book, Overdiagnosis, Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, by H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy. In 2003 the National Osteoporosis Foundation recommended that women should be treated with meds with a dexascan T-score of -2.0 instead of the previous recommendation of -2.5. That instantly made 6.7 million new “patients” that will be treated for a lifetime. Only 5 % of those patients will turn out to be winners because the treatment will prevent them from getting a fracture that is unless they get a severe side effect from the medicine such as bone degeneration of the jaw. 44% of patients will get a fracture despite treatment, and 51% will get no benefit because they were never going to get a fracture anyway. Celebration of Health Association website