Osteoporosis
Introduction
How to prevent osteoporosis
In 1993, the Lancet medical journal reported that the remains of an 18th century woman were found beneath a church. Studies showed that these bones were stronger and more dense than the bones of any modern women, either pre-menopausal or post-menopausal. Something in our modern lifestyle is clearly affecting the density and strength of our bones, and only now are we beginning to understand what that might be.
While traditionally considered to be a women's disease, osteoporosis is also found in men, although normally to a lesser degree. In this section, I'll examine why women are more likely to get osteoporosis and take a look at why this condition has become so prevalent. Lifestyle is one of the main factors that is within your control, and adopting a few simple changes can go a long way towards protecting the health of your bones.
What is osteoporosis?
The word osteoporosis literally means 'porous bones'; in other words, bones that are filled with tiny pores, or holes. Our bones change constantly - breaking down and being rebuilt as part of the living process. Two kinds of cells are important for this process, and they are known as osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Osteoclasts renew old bone by dissolving or resorbing it, leaving an empty space. The osteoblasts then fill this empty space with new bone.
If the rate of renewal does not equal the rate of breakdown, bone loss occurs. If this continues over years, the result is osteoporosis.
Are there any symptoms?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question may be no. Osteoporosis is often called a 'silent disease' because the first sign of the condition can be a fracture resulting from a minor accident. One patient told me that she discovered she had osteoporosis after breaking her ribs while sneezing. It has even been suggested that the majority of osteoporosis-related accidents are the result of the bone breaking, causing a fall, rather than the reverse.
This one of the reasons why testing - and prevention - are so important.
What is the cause?
There are a number of factors that can contribute to the development of osteoporosis. These include:
- heredity
- premature menopause
- lack of exercise
- smoking
- certain medication
- irregular menstrual cycles
- weight
- digestive problems
- certain foods and drinks
If you have established osteoporosis there is no doubt that you will need some medical treatment. But don't write off the natural approach. Follow the recommendations on the following pages alongside your treatment in order to give your body the best chance of increasing bone density.
If you have been told that you do not have osteoporosis and that your bones are normal, or just below, it is worth following the recommendations in order to either maintain that good bone density or to prevent a minor problem from becoming a major one.
Dietary changes
It is important that you eat a wide variety of foods in order to get a good supply of nutrients for bone health. Some of the substances contained in food and drinks can have a negative effect on your bones. If you have any of the risk factors, or have been told that your bone density is low, it is well worth making some changes.
You need to be particularly careful if you are on a weight-loss diet. Some of the most popular diets of the moment focus on a high-protein intake. This is not suitable for women who are at risk of osteoporosis (nor, really, are they appropriate for anyone!). The higher your animal protein intake, the greater your bone loss. There are healthy ways to control your weight, and these are explained in the Natural Alternatives to Dieting section and in my book "Natural Alternatives to Dieting".
Caffeine, sugar and alcohol
I have put these three together because they have a similar effect on the bones. They all cause extreme changes in blood sugar levels which in turn causes the release of adrenaline. At the menopause it is especially important that your adrenal glands are not overworking because they will be called upon to produce a form of oestrogen, once your ovaries begin to produce less. This oestrogen from the adrenal glands can then help to protect your bones. Both coffee and sugar cause an acidic reaction similar to protein, which leeches the calcium from your bones. For example, we now know that drinking more than two cups of coffee a day can significantly increase the risk of hip fractures
Alcohol is also connected with osteoporosis because it increases bone loss and the incidence of fractures.
Soft drinks
Soft drinks contain high levels of phosphorus. Phosphorus is an interesting
mineral because women should not have too much of it. When phosphorous
levels in your blood rise, a message is sent to your brain, telling
it that there is not enough calcium. What's the result? The body draws
calcium from the bones and teeth to balance the high levels of phosphorus.
So if you are getting too much phosphorus, you will begin to lose calcium
from your bones. Phosphorus is contained in soft drinks, such as colas
and other 'fizzy' drinks. The main concern is that women reach their
peak bone mass by the age of 35 and it starts to decline after that.
If girls are loading themselves up with soft drinks there is a possibility
of having an osteoporosis epidemic in years to come.
Dairy foods
Remember that milk is an animal protein and you may be excreting more calcium that you are taking in if you eat too many dairy products. As you'll see below, calcium is not the most important aspect of bone health, and dairy foods are not the only source of calcium. You might be interested to learn that breast-fed babies absorb more calcium from their mother's milk than from cows' milk, despite the fact that cows' milk contains four times the amount of calcium. What is crucial is how your body uses the calcium, and many people believe that our systems were not really designed to cope with cow's milk.
Tea
Tea contains caffeine , which will have an acidic effect on the body in the same way that coffee does. Fortunately, the effects are somewhat reduced with tea-drinking, so if you need your 'cuppa', take care to drink it away from mealtimes. Tannin in tea binds to important minerals such as calcium and iron and prevents their absorption in the digestive tract. Leave a gap of at least one hour before or after eating if you are going to have a cup of regular black tea. Green tea is better, as it has antioxidant effects, but it still contains some caffeine. Therefore, it's best to keep it to a minimum, drinking mainly herbal teas, such as peppermint.
Bran
Bran is a refined food that contains substances call 'phytates'. These bind valuable minerals such as calcium and many others, including zinc and magnesium, that are essential for bone and general health. In other words, they attract these minerals, a bit like a magnet, and they are excreted with the bran from the digestive tract. Don't use bran on cereals. It is better to eat bran in the form that nature intended - in other words, as part of the whole grain itself (wheat or oats, for example).
The first supplement that comes to mind when we consider osteoporosis is calcium. There's no doubt that calcium is important to build up and maintain the strength of our bones, but high levels in our diets or in supplements do not necessarily mean that the calcium is actually reaching our bones. When we consume calcium we need both stomach acid and vitamin D in order to absorb calcium properly.
Many other nutrients are equally crucial for healthy bones, and these
include magnesium, vitamin C vitamin D, zinc and boron. This is why
it is important not to focus exclusively on calcium as a supplement
for bone health, but to take a range of nutrients that are important
for the bones.
Multivitamin and Mineral Supplement
A good quality multivitamin and mineral would form the foundation of your supplement programme to make sure that you are getting a 'little bit of everything'. You then add in the nutrients listed below in slightly higher amounts which are known to be helpful for osteoporosis.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D helps to regulate blood levels of both calcium and phosphorus. Without good levels of vitamin D you cannot absorb calcium from your food or your supplements. You may be getting plenty in your diet, but if your body thinks there is not enough in the blood, it will begin to leach it from your bones. Over time this will cause bone loss.
Vitamin C
This builds up collagen, which is a sort of 'cement' that holds the bone matrix (the architecture of the bone) together, so it is as important as the minerals for prevention of osteoporosis.
Folic Acid
High homocysteine levels in menopausal women have also been associated with an increase in bone loss. Homocysteine comes from the breakdown of one of the essential amino acids (methionine) and should, under normal circumstances, be detoxified by the body. Giving women folic acid has helped to reduce the homocysteine in the blood. It has been suggested that a B complex supplement that contains folic acid should be sufficient, and this will also contain vitamin B6, which is important for the bones. Vitamin B6 has been found to be deficient in people with hip fractures, and rats fed a vitamin B6 deficient diet developed osteoporosis.
Calcium
You do need calcium for your bones but you also need to be able to absorb the calcium you take. Not all calcium supplements are the same. Calcium carbonate is the cheapest form of calcium. It's literally mined from the ground. This isn't a naturally occurring form of dietary calcium, as no foods (either plant or animal) that we eat contain calcium carbonate. This is the most difficult form of calcium to absorb and you need a pretty efficient digestive system in order to manage it. If you have low levels of stomach acid (hydrochloric acid), you will struggle to absorb the calcium from a calcium carbonate supplement.
One study showed that of a group of post-menopausal women, 40 percent were severely deficient in stomach acid. Those with the low levels only absorbed 4 percent of the calcium from calcium carbonate, as compared to 45 percent of the calcium from another form of calcium supplement, called calcium citrate. In another study, 500mg of calcium citrate was absorbed better than even 2000mg of calcium carbonate.
Blood-testing for calcium levels is not particularly helpful because your body has a fail-safe mechanism to take calcium from your bones if the level falls in the blood. In other words, your calcium levels might appear high even when they are not, because your body will have leached calcium from your bones. A hair mineral analysis is a better indicator because you can see high calcium turnover (the calcium level is higher than normal) in the results.
Magnesium
Magnesium is just as important as calcium for your bones. It helps in metabolising calcium and vitamin C and helps to convert vitamin D to the active form necessary to ensure that calcium is efficiently absorbed by your body. A study conducted by a lab in London compared different groups of women, some with osteoporosis, some post-menopausal but with no osteoporosis and some on HRT. They found that none of the women in any group had low levels of calcium. But the women with osteoporosis had low levels of other bone nutrients, including magnesium and zinc. They also had low levels of the enzyme alkaline phosphatase, which is an indication that the bone is not renewing itself adequately. Magnesium is required for normal levels of this enzyme.
Not having enough magnesium can stop bone growth, decrease bone cell activity and make the bones more fragile. Magnesium also prevents the build-up of unwanted calcium deposits elsewhere in the body. In a 1991 research project, one group of women took HRT plus magnesium. The other took HRT alone. After nine months the bone mineral density of the women taking magnesium had increased by 11 percent. The women taking only HRT showed no increase in bone mineral density. After two years the magnesium takers were still improving their bone density.
Boron
Boron is another mineral that is being widely studied in relation to osteoporosis. Research conducted by the US Department of Agriculture demonstrated that giving post-menopausal women a short course of 3mg boron supplements daily resulted in a 44 percent reduction in the amount of calcium excreted in their urine. The conclusions of this study were that boron improved the metabolism (the way it is used by the body) of both calcium and magnesium. Boron is found in alfalfa, kelp, cabbage and leafy greens.
Zinc
Zinc helps vitamin D absorb calcium. Zinc is needed for the proper formation of osteoclasts and osteoblasts, the two cells which are essential for bone turnover. Zinc has found to be deficient in older people with osteoporosis
Other factors
Exercise
Exercise is extremely important in the prevention of osteoporosis.
You need to ensure that you are doing some weight-bearing exercises
(such as brisk walking, running, tennis, badminton, stair-climbing or
aerobics).
Mineral Analysis Test with Supplement and Nutritional Assessment Programme
This test measures the deficiency and excess levels of 7 different minerals and 5 heavy toxic metals that may be present in your body.
Online Personalised Supplement Assessment Programme
The analysis of this comprehensive questionnaire will give you a three monthly supplement programme to help balance any vitamin and mineral deficiencies you may have.
Osteoporosis Bone Turnover Test (Urine)
This simple urine test, (which is collected at home), measures how much your bone is turning over. i.e.. The rate at which you might be loosing bone.
After three months you would then have a re-test in order to monitor your progress and adjust your supplement programme according to your new condition.
If you need help in obtaining any of the supplements, herbs or tests mentioned above, click, The Natural Health Practice. They can supply all of them for you online or if you prefer to talk to somebody first you can also order by mail order on the telephone. The products supplied by this company are always of the highest quality.
Nutrition
Ensure you are getting the right nutrition:
Follow the dietary recommendations outlined in The Foundation of Health
The supplement programme below should be taken for at least three months in order to achieve best results.
- A good multivitamin and mineral supplement which contains boron e.g. Femforte II
- B complex (50 mg of each B vitamin per day; including the amount you get from your multivitamin and mineral supplement)
- Vitamin C with bioflavonoids (1000mg per day)
- A combined magnesium and calcium citrate supplement (with up to 500mg of calcium citrate per day)
- Zinc citrate (15mg per day)
- Linseed oil (1000mg per day, for general health)
At the end of three months you should reassess your condition and adjust your supplement programme accordingly.
The tests below have been specially selected to be the most helpful if you are concerned about osteoporosis.
Mineral Analysis Test with Supplement and Nutritional Assessment Programme
Online Personalised
Supplement Assessment Programme
Osteoporosis Bone Turnover Test (Urine)
After three months you would then have a re-test in order to monitor your progress and adjust your supplement programme according to your new condition.
If you need help in obtaining any of the supplements, herbs or tests mentioned above, click, The Natural Health Practice. They can supply all of them for you online or if you prefer to talk to somebody first you can also order by mail order on the telephone. The products supplied by this company are always of the highest quality.
This section forms part of a larger 13 page chapter on Osteoporosis taken from my book, In the rest of the chapter you will learn what the medical approaches to Osteoporosis are and how to combine them with the natural approach. This is called Integrated Medicine and is the way that healthcare of the future is moving towards. You will also learn what medical tests will give you an accurate diagnosis of your condition and if you really need to have them. The medical treatments for Osteoporosis are then examined which can include looking at either drugs or surgery. Each treatment is then discussed and the pros and cons of the options explained. The Integrated Approach to Osteoporosis is considered in some detail so that if appropriate you can know how to combine the best of both conventional and natural medicine.
At the end of the chapter is a practical step by step summary of what you can do to help yourself.
If you would like to read the rest of this chapter click, Osteoporosis E-book at The Natural Health Practice and you will be given details of how you can download the whole chapter.
Or if you would like even more in depth advice about Osteoporosis you should read "The New Natural Alternatives to HRT"; an international best seller acclaimed by many as "one of the best books I have ever read on Osteoporosis."
