If you were at risk of developing osteoporosis in later life, would you want to know now? We’re asking because dentists have developed new technology that could warn you of osteoporosis years before you start experiencing any symptoms.
Dentists across the stream in Manchester University have pioneered a technology known as Osteodent, an x-ray machine that can detect those at risk of osteoporosis by looking at dental scans.
At present, it is estimated that 300,000 Irish people have osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a disease that reduces the density of bones, making them weak and prone to breaking. It is believed that 1 in 5 men, and 1 in 2 women over the age of 50 will develop a fracture due to osteoporosis in their lifetime.
The good news is that it is a disease that can be prevented, if you catch it in time so this new technology could spare a lot of people a lot of pain.
Assessing your risk could be as simple as visiting your dentist.
Until now, there has been no solid way of predicting whether a person is likely to develop the disease in later life – in most cases, a diagnosis is only made after someone has had a fracture.
But a study has shown that bone deterioration in the jaw can reveal if this deterioration is happening in other parts of the body too. So your routine dental scan could stop you from developing full-blown osteoporosis.
Using the above information, dentists developed the technology which can immediately assess how likely an individual is to develop the disease.
“Dentists are uniquely positioned to provide such a service as they see patients regularly and routinely perform X-ray examinations,” said Hugh Devlin, professor of restorative dentistry at Manchester University and one of the co-developers of the new technology.
Professor Devlin said he believed that the technology could save lives and, with early diagnosis of the condition, save the government a lot of money as well.
