How To Prevent Osteoporosis

Prevention is far better than later searching for an osteoporosis cure or treatment. Saving your bones now is easier than trying to rebuild lost bone later and it is never too early to begin. Below is a list of tips that will help strengthen bones and help prevent developing osteoporosis.

Calcium and Magnesium

Calcium is the macromineral that is considered so crucial for the development and overall health of bones. However, you also need magnesium, vitamin D and trace elements for your body to be able to utilize the calcium needed.

Most people take calcium supplements but forget to take other supplements to prevent osteoporosis. Without the other necessary elements, excess calcium cannot be utilized and will be uselessly excreted from the body.

Almost 99% of the calcium in the body can be found in the teeth and bones. However, the rest of the body also has a need for calcium and will take it from the skeleton if blood calcium is low. Our body uses and loses calcium through our hair, nails, skin, feces, and urine. It is very important that we include calcium-rich foods in our diet, such as fresh veggies, greens, beans, dairy, herbs, and spices that are calcium-rich.

Weight-bearing Exercises

Spending at least 20 minutes performing weight-bearing exercise daily will greatly help keep the integrity of your bones. Even simply standing for 30 minutes a day is ‘weight-bearing’. Your body is supporting your body-weight, which provides the impulsion for your body to increase skeletal mass.

Research has proven that without daily weight-bearing stress being applied to the skeleton, even a large intake of calcium is ineffective and all but useless, as the body will not lay down new bone unless it needs to.

This action is similar to the actions that cause muscle growth – muscle mass increases relative to the loads placed upon them. With the skeleton, however, individual bones do not need to be stressed or loaded. The load placed upon our large leg and hip bones provides the impetus for the body to create bone growth over the whole skeleton.

Your exercise regimen may include running, yoga, tennis, and jogging. Domestic chores that involve standing are also weight-bearing exercises. This includes activities such as ironing (while standing) and gardening, even simply standing and watering your plants. These kinds of physical activities will give your bones the opportunity to support your body weight, thus encouraging new bone growth.

Maintain a Healthy Weight

If you are overweight, you now have another good reason to think about losing any excess pounds. Obese or overweight individuals are at a higher risk of developing osteoporosis.

This may sound strange knowing that ‘weight-bearing’ is important for healthy bones, however, a survey from NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), showed that obese women were four times more at risk of osteoporosis than women of normal weight. Obese men were five times more likely to have osteoporosis than non-obese men.

Quit Smoking

Smoking affects your health in all areas, including your bone health. Cigarette smoking is known to be a significant contributor towards bone mineral density loss.

A study revealed that 80 year old smokers were found to have 10% lower bone mineral density than non-smokers. That means that smokers are twice as likely to suffer from spinal fractures, and they also face a 50% higher risk of getting hip fractures.

Another disadvantage of being a smoker is that fractures tend to heal very slowly compared to non-smokers.

Limit Alcohol Intake

If you really want to prevent osteoporosis, and if you tend to over-indulge on alcohol, now is a good time to start reducing your alcohol intake. Study after study has shown that alcohol consumption can adversely affect bone health. Alcohol has been shown to decrease the production of estrogen. When the estrogen production declines, the process of bone remodeling also slows down which in turn leads to bone loss.

So, if you want to prevent osteoporosis, the best thing you can do is to follow a healthy lifestyle. Eat right, exercise regularly, don’t drink or smoke and you’ll save your bones naturally!

Prevention is better than cure! Try MilkCa together with the tips on this article to help fight osteoporosis.