Medical and paramedical causes of formation of high public attention to the problem of bone mass loss. The analysis of dynamics and structure of publications on osteoporosis

Using the Medline database within the period from 1960 to 2004 the authors made a quantitative analysis of publication dynamics with the key words relevant to osteoporosis problem. Their notable increase has been demonstrated to start since the late 1970s. There was a significant disparity between an immense number (thousands per year) of articles on epidemiology, diagnostics, complications of osteoporosis (fractures) and its treatment, and a relatively scanty number (hundreds per year) of publications on the pathogenesis of bone mass loss as a whole and that of osteoporosis in particular. The authors emphasize the presence of informational pressing in the sphere of conservative treatment and prevention of osteoporosis. As for the society on the whole and a certain part of medical community, this pressing is a background of forming parascientific and paramedical knowledge which determine, not quite correctly from etiopathogenetic point of view the main ways of prevention, diagnosticis and treatment of bone mass loss and osteoporosis in particular.