Dr Caoimhe Hartley

I think they're less accurate when you're younger.

So I think there's a kind of happy, there's a Goldilocks zone of yield of like where you're doing them at a point where they're very accurate.

You're likely to get a result that is clinically significant.

So let's say we screened everybody in their 30s.

We're not going to see enough

bone density loss at that point for it to be meaningful to do screening.

So it's just, I think, figuring out where the line is.

And you're trying to capture really postmenopausal women because it's that period of rapid bone density loss that pushes most people from normal density into osteopenia or maybe into osteoporosis.

And so that would be on average 55-56%.

To be five years from your last period, you'd be 55, 56 on average.

So I think that's probably where the guidance has come from, is based on all of that.

But yeah, in a practical sense, we would talk about DEXA screening and bone health with everyone, really.

And then I'm perfectly happy referring on for a DEXA when you're post-menopausal onwards.

Okay.

Yeah.

But you need to go for one yourself.

So I had a rather low impact, really fragility fracture in my wrist.

Oh, did you?

Yeah.

And my mom has really severe, like she's spinal fractures.