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Earlier this summer, I found myself lying flat on a padded table in Tucson, Arizona. A mechanical arm hovered above me, scanning my body from head to toe while I tried to remain still. Fifteen-ish minutes later, a clinician handed me a thick packet of results, which included details on bone density, lean muscle mass, body fat percentage, and color-coded visuals showing exactly where each of these metrics was located within my body.

This was a DEXA scan, short for dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Since the late 1980s, hospitals have used this method to diagnose osteoporosis, and it remains the go

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