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Current guidelines for managing osteoporosis specifically call out hip or spine fractures for increasing the risk for subsequent bone breaks. But a new UCLA-led study suggests that fractures in the arm, wrist, leg and other parts of the body should also set off alarm bells.
A fracture, no matter the location, indicates a general tendency to break a bone in the future at a different location, said Dr. Carolyn Crandall, the study's lead author and a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
"Current clinical guidelines have only been emphasizing hip and spine fractures, but our findings challenge that viewpoint," Crandall said. "By not paying attention to which types of fractures increase the risk of future fractures, we are missing the opportunity to identify people at increased risk of future fracture and counsel them regarding risk reduction.