Taipei Times
Date: Oct 07, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

The Taiwanese Osteoporosis Association yesterday urged people to start doing strength training regularly and maintain sufficient protein intake before the age of 50 to prevent loss of mobility due to aging.

Association chairman Wing Chan (陳榮邦), director of Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital’s Department of Radiology, said that Taiwan’s demographic structure is changing drastically and is expected to become a super-aged society by 2025.

The elderly population was only about 1.49 million (7.1 percent of the total population) in 1993, but it is expected to reach more than 4.7 million (20.1 percent of the total population) by 2025, so maintaining mobility for elderly people would become an important issue, he said.

“About one in three people in Taiwan have hidden risks of experiencing mobility problems,” Chan said, adding that an estimated 2.86 million people have low bone density (osteoporosis), an estimated 810,000 people have low muscle mass (sarcopenia) and an estimated 3.53 million people have joint disorders or degenerative joint disease.    [FULL  STORY]