Why Do We Lose Our Bones?
Low bone density (osteoporosis) puts many women above the age of 50 or after menopause at risk for bone fractures. While there is very little you can do to treat osteoporosis, there are preventative measures you can take to lower your risk of developing this condition.
Bone density, also called bone mass, continues to grow from childhood through to early adulthood in both men and women. After that, both men and women start to lose bone density at a very gradual rate until women reach menopause, where there is a dramatic decrease in bone density for several years.
What causes this dramatic decrease in bone density? Bones are made of calcium and other minerals that make them strong. As you grow, bones are in a constant state of repair and renewal. Once you reach your thirties, you start to lose bone mass, but there are physical processes, habits and behaviors that increase the risk of bone loss and osteoporosis, especially in women. These include:
• Decrease in levels of hormones (estrogen in women and testosterone in men)
• Smoking
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Lack of exercise
• Lack of calcium and vitamin D in diet
• Genetics
• Medications
• Chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer, especially breast and prostate cancers
• Being small and thin in stature
• Anorexia
Although osteoporosis cannot be cured once you have it, there are certain things you can do to slow down both the rate and level of bone loss. Exercise, modifying your diet, increasing vitamin D and calcium intake or taking supplements (calcium citrate), quitting smoking and closely monitoring alcohol consumption can slow down the rate at which bone loss occurs.
Many are under the false impression that you cannot have chiropractic work with osteoporosis. On the contrary, chiropractors are skilled in giving low-force adjustments to patients with degeneration. In addition, we may be able to suggest certain supplements or weight-bearing exercises that slow the rate of further bone loss.
When you are in the process of preventing osteoporosis and taking supplements for it, make sure that you are taking one that will actually do something good for you. You want to look to see if it is actually from a natural source or in raw from. Many of the synthetic supplements will actually do you more harm than good.
Pool exercises are great to get that heart rate up and move the joints which are very important. However, as mentioned earlier, you want to balance that out with weight bearing exercises so that your joints will have that impact and stress on them in order to maintain those nice healthy bones. Prevention is by far a better way to go as opposed to a cure and the main person in charge of that is the person reading this article. Are there other reasons? Sure, but let’s focus on the approach that we can do something about.
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Posted under Osteoarthritis
This post was written by assistant on December 8, 2010











