What Is Brittle Bone Disease?

Brittle bone disease is a lifelong genetic disorder that causes your bones to break very easily, usually without any type of injury, as from a fall. Your doctor may also call it osteogenesis imperfecta.It affects both sexes and all races equally.There is no cure for brittle bone disease, but your doctor can treat it.

Brittle bone disease is passed down through families, or inherited. It’s caused by a defect in a gene that is supposed to make a substance called collagen. Collagen is a protein in your body that forms and strengthens bones. If you don’t have enough of it, your bones become very weak and will break easily.Most children with brittle bone disease get this gene from only one parent, but it’s possible to get it from both. Sometimes a child doesn’t inherit the gene from either parent, but the gene mutation develops on its own.