Superior Bone Health for Promoting Longer and Better Lives

The article: “Does Superior Bone Health Promote a Longer Lifespan?” by Dayer et al. ¹ led to the findings that a lower percentage of osteoporosis and fractures likely reduced morbidity and mortality in patients 90 years old and older, concluding that superior bone health results in living longer lifespans. Nonagenarians have far outlived the average lifespan by over a decade. In addition to the findings that superior bone health can lead to living longer lives, it is also important to consider if superior bone health can lead to living better lives, too. Patients want to live longer and better lives, as many would believe that the quality of life is just as important—if not more important—than the quantity of life. As the authors found that superior bone health can promote a longer lifespan, can superior bone health also promote a better lifestyle?

Very few research studies have investigated this topic, though not on how superior bone health could result in a better quality of life, but on how inferior bone health due to osteoporosis and fractures can result in lower quality of life. Osteoporosis and fractures have been found to hinder physical, mental, and social well-being, ² with most studies only examining the effects on physical health. For instance, osteoporosis and fractures can result in decreased physical function ³ and lower physical health–related quality of life (HRQoL). ⁴ However, there still are few studies examining the extensiveness of osteoporosis and fractures on physical quality of life, with even less known about how they affect mental and social quality of life.

Therefore, in addition to Dayer et al.’s ¹ findings on superior bone health and its impact on living longer lives, research is needed to further investigate superior bone health and its impact on living better lives. As we know that osteoporosis and fractures cause increased morbidity and mortality to reduce the quantity of life, more research should explore their effects on the quality of life. While many may desire to live a longer life, many could consider a poor quality of life to be one not worth living longer. Thus, in addition to asking, “Does superior bone health promote a longer lifespan?” in which it appears that it does, we should also ask, “Does superior bone health promote a better life?” And this is to encourage researchers to further investigate and examine how the absence or presence of osteoporosis and fractures affects physical, mental, and social well-being, because in addition to knowing that superior bone health can impact and increase the quantity of life, we should know if and how superior bone health could also impact and possibly improve the quality of life as well.