Background The Italian Society for Orthopaedics and Traumatology conceived this guidance—which is primarily addressed to Italian orthopedic surgeons, but should also prove useful to other bone specialists and to general practitioners—in order to improve the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of osteoporosis and its consequences.Materials and methodsLiterature reviews by a multidisciplinary team.ResultsThe following topics are covered: the role of instrumental, metabolic, and genetic evaluations in the diagnosis of osteoporosis; appraisal of the risk of fracture and thresholds for intervention; general strategies for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis (primary and secondary prevention); the pharmacologic treatment of osteoporosis; the setting and implementation of fracture liaison services for tertiary prevention. Grade A, B, and C recommendations are provided based on the main levels of evidence (1–3). Toolboxes for everyday clinical practice are provided.ConclusionsThe first up-to-date Italian guidelines for the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures are presented.

This scoping review showed that selected micronutrients in adequate doses might have an ancillary role in musculoskeletal health and cognitive functions in older people.

Persistence to denosumab treatment in our observational real practice study was very high. These results suggest that factors such as frequency of visits, pharmacological schedule, and opportunity to call the doctor might play an important role in the persistence and adherence to treatment to obtain maximum therapeutic effect and avoid further fragility fractures.

Bone is a tissue that dynamically adapts mass and architecture to the mechanical loads that occur in daily life in a world with gravity. Bone architecture and mass are influenced by the applied tension peak, whereas the bone formation rate is modulated by the stimulus frequency. In bone tissue, osteocytes govern the detection of mechanical afferents and their transformation into biochemical messages, therefore these cells can be considered a mechanosensor that directs osteogenesis to where it is most needed to increase bone strength. The stimulation of osteocytes occurs with several modalities: shear stress and stretch, extracellular pressure modifications, strains, variations of electric field in and around osteocytes lacunae. The osteocyte network, under physiological conditions, activates osteoclastogenesis and suppresses osteoblast function enhancing bone resorption and inhibiting bone formation. In the unloaded condition, the functions of the osteocyte network are augmented, whereas exercise could decrease inhibitory effects on bone mass by reducing both osteoclastogenesis and inhibition on osteoblast function.

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