December brings the year-end reflection moment and Bone and Joint Health Awareness. Bone loss accelerates dramatically at perimenopause and menopause, and most women don’t get a DEXA scan until their sixties or after a fracture. By then, we’ve lost years of intervention opportunity. The bone conversation should start at 40, not 60.
This session covers bone health as an active, monitorable system rather than something you assess only after something breaks. We’ll walk through what a DEXA scan actually measures, what markers indicate the pace of bone turnover in real time, and why hormone status, vitamin D, and inflammation all connect to the bone story. Bone loss is preventable and reversible in ways most women aren’t told. But you have to be tracking to know where you stand.
Standard of care markers we’ll cover include DEXA scan (bone mineral density), vitamin D, and calcium panels. Emerging markers include CTX and P1NP for bone turnover assessment, TRAP-5b, sclerostin, high-resolution DEXA with trabecular bone score, hormone panels as they relate to bone loss (estrogen, testosterone, parathyroid hormone), and the emerging case for earlier baseline DEXA scans at perimenopause.
You’ll leave with understanding of when to start tracking bone health, what markers to request beyond a standard DEXA, and the framework for a conversation with your physician about prevention rather than diagnosis after the fact.
