Our bones are active and dynamic, and like the rest of the body's organs - are involved in a constant process of cell growth, repair and change. When this process doesn’t work as well as it should, then bone thinning begins to take place. Bones are made from a wonderful honeycomb of strands formed by the protein collagen and hardened by calcium salts and other minerals. This honeycomb is filled with bone marrow and blood vessels and protected by a dense outer shell. Scattered throughout are millions of living bone cells, which continually break down and replace old bone. Our bones are completely renewed over a period of about ten years.  This then would debunk the theory that bones cannot be rebuilt and suggests that Osteoporosis can be reversed.

When young, your bones get denser and stronger generally reaching maximum strength at around the age of 25 and this state is called peak bone mass. If you are able to eat well, exercise and generally live a healthy life – you should maintain most of this mass into old age.  Unfortunately there are many different circumstances and situations which tend to erode bones.

It’s important to know though, that although this is often only “diagnosed” at menopause (and in fact blamed on menopause) this is not always the case.  Firstly, if you are a woman, you probably won’t think of having a bone density scan before menopause – and if this is the case, how can you possibly know what your mass was prior to menopause anyway?  It may just be that you are one of those people who has a lower bone density than the next person, but that is perfectly “normal” for you.  Or your bone mass could have stayed the same for many many years.

Because we are all unique and wonderfully made, we need to recognize that what is normal for one person in regard to weight, bone-mass or cholesterol readings – is not necessarily normal or even right for everyone else.  So whereas one person may have a “textbook” bone mass reading, someone else may have a much lower bone density – which may in fact be fine for them. 

Treatments

Once you've lost bone mass, it can be regained, and that’s good news indeed.  However, as a nutritionist, I’m not going to recommend drugs for this!  There are safer, more effective ways to do this naturally in my humble opinion.  But why would I say don’t use drugs?  Let’s look at what a couple of them do:

Bisphosphonates - these drugs ostensibly switch off the cells that break down bone, so bone building can take over.  However, the side effects are so horrific and lengthy (including killing off your jawbone), that having a look at this site will convince you of the terrible dangers if nothing else will!  Recent news tells us that these drugs also cause femur fractures!  The very drug you are taking to prevent this happening, now actually causes it.

Recently researchers at the University of British Columbia and McGill University issued a warning on this class of osteoporosis drugs (bisphosphonates) taken by millions of women around the world that can lead to bone necrosis, a painful and disfiguring condition. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also issued an alert on bisphosphonates, including alendronate and risedronate, warning that these medications can cause severe bone pain.

To read more, there is a blog which puts it really well.  Most women this happened to had been on the drug - which shall remain nameless - for over 7 years, and were basically “doing nothing” when their legs broke!  (For more)

Hormone Replacement – whilst this may slow bone loss slightly, there is no scientific evidence to show it builds bone at all – and of course you may have a heart attack triggered by the hormones, a stroke or develop breast cancer – all of which have been shown in trials to be possible on these drugs.  You may be exchanging one problem for another, or simply adding to your woes.

Prevention in a Nutshell

Move it or Lose it: No other facet of your life has greater impact on the health of your bones. If you are physically active, your body will work to make your bones as strong and flexible as possible. If you lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle, your body will not maintain strong bones since your lifestyle is not signaling a need for such bones.

Regularly Eat Mineral-Rich Foods: Your body needs much more than calcium supplements to build and maintain healthy bones. When you consider that your bones are comprised of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, manganese, zinc, iron, silica, and many other trace minerals, it should be clear that eating mineral-rich foods is far superior to taking calcium-based supplements when it comes to providing comprehensive nourishment for your bones. 

Green vegetables and herbs are the healthiest, mineral-rich foods that you can eat. If you want to ensure that you are getting the minerals in green vegetables and making them available to your bones, chew them thoroughly. This breaks down the protective cell walls that surround all plant cells to allow your body to have access to the many minerals contained therein.

Drinking freshly pressed vegetable juices and well blended green smoothies are other ways of ensuring that you actually get the minerals in green vegetables and herbs into your bloodstream. Use of high quality super green food powders can also help to provide your bloodstream and bones with a rich supply of minerals.

Try a Mineral Broth: Broths that are made by simmering bones and a variety of vegetables for an hour or longer are a fantastic source of calcium and other minerals that can be used to keep your bones strong and flexible. Mineral-rich broths are a chief source of dietary calcium in East Asian countries like Korea, China, and Japan, where many people are unable to fully digest dairy products. These broths take significant time and effort to make on a regular basis, but they are worth the effort of making, as they provide almost instant nourishment to your bones and other organs.

Get plenty of Vitamin D: Adequate amounts of vitamin D must be present in your body for calcium in your foods to be optimally absorbed and used.  When the weather is warm and sunlight is readily present, the best way to ensure adequate vitamin D status is to expose your skin to sunlight on a regular basis without getting burned. Sunlight acts on cholesterol found in your skin to produce vitamin D. Your body knows to stop producing vitamin D in this fashion when you have built up an adequate level. Unfortunately sunscreen with an SPF of 8 or higher can prevent sunlight from acting on cholesterol in your skin to produce vitamin D.

If it’s cool, then your best bet for obtaining adequate vitamin D is to regularly eat one or more foods that are naturally rich in vitamin D. Different varieties of fish like wild salmon and sardines or a good quality cod liver oil are all good sources of natural vitamin D.

Eat High Quality Fat: Consumption of high quality fats optimizes the absorption of vitamins A and D into your bloodstream as these vitamins are fat-soluble. Vitamin A is needed to keep your intestinal lining healthy and readily able to absorb minerals in the foods that you eat.  That’s why it's virtually impossible to have optimally healthy bones and teeth without including healthy fats in your diet.  This is also of concern with cholesterol-lowering medication (but that’s another topic!).  Here are some examples of foods which are rich in healthy fats:

* Extra virgin olive oil 
* Avocados 
* Organic eggs from organically-raised chickens 
* Soaked nuts and seeds (about a handful per day at most) but NOT their oils
* Cold-water fish and high quality pharmaceutical fish oil supplements (and take 3g to make a difference – too little is not going to work)
* Coconuts and a little coconut oil 
* Bone broths – soup made with bones and vegetables
* Organically raised red and white meats

Healthy cholesterol is also needed for a healthy intestinal lining that is able to optimally absorb minerals into your bloodstream. Healthy dietary cholesterol can help to ensure adequate cholesterol status in your system so that sunlight has enough cholesterol to act on to produce vitamin D. There is so much hype about low cholesterol, but going “too low” is really dangerous here, as your cancer risk rises, and your bone density drops.  Cholesterol really isn’t the enemy as it’s made out to be, but a bad diet and bad fats such as margarine, sunflower oil and flaxseed oil are best avoided.

Manage emotional stress: Chronic emotional stress can elevate the level of cortisol in your blood. Cortisol is useful for combating stress, but if it remains elevated in your system over the long term, it can cause the matrix of your bones to weaken. Corticosteroid drugs can also weaken your bones and cause osteoporosis if used in large quantities long term. 

Avoid Consumption of Bone-Robbing Foods such as:

* Artificial sweeteners (other than xylitol and stevia which are both completely safe)
* Fruit juices and fizzy drinks
* Sugar in any guise.  Fructose is even more dangerous (it’s not from fruit, but from high-fructose corn-syrup – really lethal stuff)
* Muffins, biscuits, cakes, and pastries made with white flour and junk fats
* Table salt (rock salt is fine, not the ‘free-flowing’ salt though!)
* Excess or regular alcohol intake has been shown to adversely affect bone density

Increase Vitamin C Intake: Collagen is a long, fibrous protein that is critical to providing your bones with tensile strength. In short, the more quality collagen that you have in your bones, the more physical stress that your bones can tolerate before breaking.

Your body needs vitamin C to synthesize collagen. You’ll not really get enough from your food unless you eat a lot of the following foods:

* Acerola cherries 
* Organic goji berries
* Bell peppers
* Broccoli 
* Brussels sprouts

If you are unable to eat fair amounts of these foods virtually daily, then take at least 2g of Ester C daily – more if you can afford to. 

Following these simple yet basic principles as far as possible, will all help to both build and maintain a healthy bone density.

For more on Sally-Ann Creed see STRESS 

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