Men Also Get Osteoporosis

With all the hype about osteoporosis in women and the ads for calcium you would think it was just a disease of women, but that is very wrong. About one in six men who live to extreme old age do have a hip fracture caused by osteoporosis. the figure is one in three for women in the same age group.

Bone loss in both sexes begins as soon as the skeleton is fully mature, which is some time after age 30. The menopause is simply an accelerated phase of bone loss. This gradual loss may never cause a man a problem if he dies before the age of 70. However, a small skeleton in either a male or female means that bone loss will become more critical earlier in life.

Testosterone in males has a similar effect on calcium and bone in men as estrogen does in women. Men tend to maintain normal testosterone levels until late in life, unless they have an illness or use alcohol to excess Studies show that in medical situations where there is a decreased testosterone level, there will also be bone loss.

It is really not known how to stop osteoporosis related to age. But it is known that cigarette smoking and alcohol both increase bone loss.

The best approach to the problem is to prevent bone loss through developing a good skeleton, with challenging exercise and proper nutrition, in the development years, and to avoid alcohol and cigarettes.

IRS PHONE SCAM

Telephone scam artist: ‘Americans are fools’

Fraudster posing as IRS official tries to scam a cop, who hassles him right back.

By KELLY PUENTE

   The con man was looking for a mark, but instead he got a cop.

   Damon Tucker, head investigator for the Major Fraud Unit in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, was checking voice messages on his personal cellphone when he heard a message a lot of us get – from a scam artist.

   Tucker called back the cheat for a chat.    “Actually you are calling the police,” Tucker told the man. “That’s the part that’s hilarious.”

   “You know what’s hilarious? You calling yourself ‘police’ ” the man replied. “That’s hilarious.”

   In a YouTube video released this week, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas warns of IRS telephone scams as Tax Day approaches.

   To get his point across, Rackauckas shows a clip of Tucker’s exchange. The cheat had left a message saying that Tucker needed to call back to avoid the IRS filing a lawsuit.

   Such callers ask that money be sent to them, or try to ferret out personal information from victims.

   In the call, Tucker volleys with the man.

   “Do you have a script that they give you?” Tucker asks. “How do you guys rip off people from their money?”

   “It’s easy to rip off people – Americans are stupid,” the fraudster replies. “You don’t need a script. American are fools. Vegetables, we call them.”

   This fraudster, unfortunately, isn’t alone.

   IRS officials said they have noticed an increase in scam artists this year calling under the guise of verifying tax return information. IRS spokesman Raphael Tulino said criminals are especially aggressive during tax season.

   “There are so many ways the scammers are trying to reach out to people,” he said.

   In January, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said there had been 896,000 phone scams reported since October 2013, with more than 5,000 victims paying $26.5 million in all.

   The IRS recommends hanging up on scam artists and reporting the incident to the Tax Administration.

   In a Wednesday interview, Tucker, a longtime fraud investigator, said he decided to “con the con artists” and repeatedly called their number, giving fake names from movies until those on the other end told him to “stop calling us.”

   “I figured if I’m tying up their line, that’s time they won’t get to spend calling potential victims,” he said.

   Tucker said he spoke with the man heard in the video several times, and the man eventually became frustrated and hung up the phone.

   The District Attorney’s Office turned the case over to its Cyber Crimes Task Force, but Tucker said these types of cases are tough to investigate because the callers are usually in another country.

   To see the video, go to www.youtube.com/user/OrangeCountyDA.