A Study Shows That Hip Fracture Rates For S’porean Chinese Women Who Fall Are Higher Than Malays & Indians

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Well, it’s really all good news actually.

A new study conducted on Tuesday, 15 October 2019 found that while the incidence of Singaporean Chinese women getting hip fractures from falling still remains the highest, when compared with Malay and Indian women, the overall hip fracture incidences among Chinese women are falling.

Yay!

Hip fracture incidences among Singaporean Chinese women across all age groups are 1.4 times higher than that of Malay women, and 1.9 times as many as that of Indian women.

P.S. This is what a hip fracture looks like:

The news is all that sweeter since a 2001 study predicted that a rise in hip fracture cases among Chinese women.

The researchers from the National University Hospital, the authors of the study, cited that one possible reason for the higher incidence of hip fractures among Chinese women is a lower rate of obesity. Lower obesity rates could lead to lowered bone mineral density and increase the risk of osteoporosis and the breakage of bones as bones get weaker.

The study also showed no change or even an increase in the incidence of hip fractures among Malay and Indian women.

Shorter, Older Women at Higher Risk

The study also showed that older, shorter women are at a higher risk of getting hip fractures from falls than the other women studied.

The results came from analysing more than 36,000 hip fractures from 2000 to 2017.

36,000 is a decent sample size for sure. I’d be worried if they examined 10 women including Grandma.

Women Still at Higher Risk Than Men

The findings also showed that women are still at higher risk than men.

Professor Yong Eu Leong, senior consultant at NUH Women’s Centre and his team explained that this could be due to the smaller stature of women, and that they lose estrogen as they age.

Estrogen is a key component in bone mineral density.

Other Findings

• Hip fractures in women above 50 are eight times more common than breast cancer in Singapore
• Hip fractures and musculoskeletal disorders are major contributors to poor health in women globally
• The overall number of hip fracture cases went up from 1487 in 2000, to 2729 in 2017 due to population growth and an increase in the elderly population
• Women in Singapore live the longest in the world
• Hip fracture injuries represent five percent of the cause of death as some patients undergo surgeries that they never recover from

The study did not cover the incidence of hip fractures from falls among the different male ethnic groups.