Osteoporosis is caused when bones become less dense, lose strength and break more easily due to calcium loss. It can occur at any age but is most common after 60 when one in two women and one in three men will suffer an bone fracture. Breaks are most common in the spine, hip and wrist and often occur after only a minor fall. Post menopausal women are particularly susceptible when there is a period of rapid bone loss due to oestrogen deficiency.

So what can you do to stop bone loss and increase bone mass?

Fortunately there are simple lifestyle changes and specific treatments available. Here are a few:

WEIGHT BEARING OR RESISTANCE EXERCISES.

Early research suggested that walking was a great way to improve and maintain bone density.

Dr Robert Newton, Exercise Science Professor at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, says studies revealed this popular exercise alone is not enough.

The load on the skeleton while walking was not at the intensity needed to encourage its millions of receptors to retain sufficient bone tissue or replace that lost in the aging process. You also need to do strength training with resistance at least twice a week.

He warned that lifting light weights in fast repetitions had little effect on bone density. To encourage the bone’s receptors to generate more bone, the weight has to be at a load of at least 10 RM [repetitions maximum] meaning it can only be lifted 10 times before fatigue sets in.

As bone formation only increases at the exact site where the load was greatest, it’s also important for you to include different strength training exercises for areas of high fracture risk including the hips, spine and wrist.

Other researchers have studied the effects of different activities and they’ve found that one of the best bone building activities is gardening. Their studies indicated that gardening was more effective than almost all the other activities.

Perhaps a combination of all 3 is the way to go. They form an important part of my exercise program. To these I add tennis twice a week and the occasional game of golf. Sadly my standard of golf seems to involve a lot of bush walking!

An added bonus for resistance training, is its importance in most fat loss programs. Resistance training increases lean muscle mass and reduces body fat. Stronger muscles provide more support for your bones and less weight means less bone stress.

CALCIUM.

Bone is made up of calcium and other minerals, such as magnesium, phosphate and collagen[protein]. Calcium is needed for the functioning of organs. If blood calcium levels fall due to inadequate calcium intake, your body will compensate by drawing more calcium out of your bones.

It is important therefore, that your diet includes calcium rich foods and supplements. Calcium occurs naturally in a range of foods. Some of the best sources are salmon, sardines, soy products, milk, yoghurt, fetta and ricotta cheese, almonds, green vegetables and sesame seeds [or tahini,sesame seed paste]. If you have an intolerance or allergy to milk or soy products, you fortunately have other options.

For optimum bone health, calcium cannot work alone. There are more than 28 different nutrients needed, including magnesium. If you take a calcium supplement, it is important that it includes magnesium as magnesium helps the absorption of calcium into the bones. The recommended calcium/magnesium ratio is 2:1.

MAGNESIUM.

Magnesium is an important body nutrient and bone strengthening mineral. It helps outer tooth enamel to harden and resist decay and is needed for the absorption of calcium into the bones. The best food sources of magnesium are almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, fresh green vegetables, soy beans, sesame seeds, parsnips and wholegrain cereals.

VITAMIN D.

This important vitamin is essential to bone health. It also assists calcium absorption and one of the best sources is sunlight. Simply taking a walk or gardening will boost your vitamin D intake. If you live in a high latitude area or experience a winter where your body is rarely exposed to sunlight, a cod liver oil supplement, high in vitamin D, may be needed to compensate for calcium loss.

VITAMIN K.

According to Dr Alan Gaby, author of “Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis”, vitamin K stimulates a permanent chemical change in the bones that causes them to actually attract calcium. The best sources are dark green leafy vegetables, including spinach and lettuce.

BUILD UP YOUR STOMACH FLORA.

As we get older, our stomach loses some of its ability to properly absorb these nutrients. One of the biggest villains is antacids as they can destroy the stomach acids needed for complete digestion.

Both calcium and magnesium require a strong acid presence in the stomach to be absorbed. If they are not properly absorbed as a result of regular antacid use, osteoporosis can develop.

In order to ensure complete digestion and absorption of minerals, if you are over 40 you may need to supplement with digestive enzymes at meals, in order to offset the natural reduction in stomach acid that occurs with age.

BEWARE HOMOCYSTEINE.

High levels of this amino acid have been linked to osteoporosis, according to research by Dr Kilmer McCully of the Harvard Medical School in Boston and author of “The Homocysteine Revolution”.

His research is supported by other studies in Germany and the Netherlands. Patients with high homocysteine levels demonstrated a higher risk of bone fractures due to the way this amino acid appears to hinder the absorption of calcium and other minerals into the bones.

A simple blood test can indicate whether you have a high homocysteine level and if you do, a simple solution is to increase your intake of B group vitamins, particularly B6, folic acid and B12. An added bonus is that by increasing your intake of these vitamins, you can also reduce your risk of heart disease according to Dr McCully.

Never start a new treatment before consulting your doctor, especially if you are currently taking medication. The information published in this article is not intended as a substitute for personal medical advice from your physician or other qualified health-care practitioner.



Thanks to Graeme Lanham for contributing this article to our Osteoporosis blog:

Osteoporosis Postmenopausal Women

A loss of bone density and strength can ultimately lead to a diagnosis of osteoporosis and the potential of years ahead of morbidity that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Diagnosing osteoporosis must be taken seriously and it must be diagnosed as early as possible so that you can salvage as much bone loss as you can.

There are very high health costs associated with an inaccurate or a missed diagnosis of osteoporosis since this can lead to unnecessary bone loss and additional fractures that could have been prevented.

When you see your physician for an exam and she is trying to determine if you have osteoporosis, and if this is a positive diagnosis, she will also look to determine if you have either primary or secondary osteoporosis.

Primary osteoporosis means the osteoporosis itself is the root of the problem. Secondary osteoporosis means that there is an underlying health condition that is creating the osteoporosis. Some of the causes of secondary osteoporosis can be chronic alcohol use, diabetes, Cushing’s disease, lymphoma, multiple myeloma or even Marfan’s syndrome. Your healthcare provider must know whether you have primary or secondary osteoporosis since the treatment is different for both.

The gold standard used when diagnosing osteoporosis is the DEXA scan, which disperses very low amounts of radiation. This test takes about 10 minutes to complete and is totally painless. With the DEXA scan the bones in the hip, the spine or the wrist are examined to determine the accurate density of the bone.

Your physician will interpret the results and based on standardized findings will be able to The DEXA scan will be able to establish if you are at a higher risk than others in the norm group to sustain a bone fracture.

Current recommendations suggest that all women over the age of 65, postmenopausal women under the age of 65 who have multiple risk factors, patients who have taken a long-term course of oral corticosteroids, and patients with a hyperparathyroidism should have a DEXA scan to determine bone density and risks.

Diagnosing osteoporosis is a painless and rather simple thing for your health care practitioner to do. Particularly if you are in the risk group, see your healthcare provider for a complete history and physical exam along with any appropriate bone scans, such as the DEXA scan so that you can have a definitive diagnosis of osteoporosis or not. Your health depends on it.

We all want to live healthy and when there is something so simple that you can do about it, take action. There’s no pain involved…well, that is unless you choose to ignore your osteoporosis and then you will have to contend the rest of your life with the results of bone fractures that you possible could have avoided.

Make the call! Your health deserves it!



Thanks to Jeff Foster for contributing this article to our Osteoporosis blog:

Reversing Osteopenia

Osteoporosis is a health condition suffered by many today of which the hallmark is the loss of the normal bone density and the subsequent fragility of the skeletal bones.

Because of the loss of or the reduction in the bone density in the original skeletal structure, the skeletal bones lose their strength putting the osteoporotic bones at a much higher risk for fracture.

But osteoporosis leads to bones that look like a sponge. These bones are abnormally porous and begin in the worst-case situations to look a lot like Swiss cheese. Osteoporosis weakens the entire skeletal system and puts the sufferer at great risk for bone fracture.

The morbidity associated with bone fractures in the aging population is quite high.

The anecdotal stories recalled time and time again of senior citizens failing to ever really recover from a bone fracture seem to point as clear evidence of the high morbidity of skeletal fractures.

With osteoporosis bone fracture easily.

In fact a minor fall or simple injury that in the majority of the population might only cause a bump or bruise, but in a person suffering from osteoporosis it can lead to a severe fracture.

The wrist, hips, and spine are the most common locations of osteoporosis-related bone fractures; however, osteoporosis-related fractures can also develop in almost any skeletal bone area.

Normal bone is composed of the collagen, calcium, and protein. But with osteoporosis these are no longer well represented.

Fractures associated with osteoporosis can be in the form of a collapse such as in the case with a compression fracture of the vertebrae in the spine or it can be a fracture in the form of a crack such as when you see a complete hip fracture.

While treatment options are more readily available, the key to osteoporosis is prevention. Once a break occurs the ramifications of that will be with you for life.

It seems currently that women have a higher incidence of osteoporosis. This is thought to be related to the many hormonal changes experienced by a woman during her lifetime.

Osteoporosis is a preventable disease.

The morbidity and mortality associated with osteoporosis is something that must be taken seriously.

Make sure that you see your health care provider on a yearly basis in order to have a current assessment about the status of your bone density particularly if you are a woman over the age of 35.



Thanks to Jeff Foster for contributing this article to our Osteoporosis blog:

Osteoporosis Alternative Treatment