2.2 What is osteoporosis?

There are two, overlapping meanings for this term.

Osteoporosis means ‘porous bones’ and is used to refer to the condition of reduced bone strength in adulthood which makes bones more fragile and easily broken.

It is also used to refer to a condition of low measured bone mineral density (BMD), far below the normal range of a young woman’s BMD on a DXA scan.