Nourishing and Protecting Your Bones as You Age

Let’s get to the bones of it all. If you live, eat, drink and move in a way that nourishes and protects your bones as you get older, not only are you creating a strong foundation for your physical body, but you’re also supporting your whole system to be healthier. Ideally, this healthy practice would have begun when you were a child, but it’s never too late to remodel your bones with healthy nutrients.

As women reach menopausal years, our doctors begin cautioning us about bone loss, offering synthetic solutions for your organic body. Let’s have a look at what you’re being told by mainstream medical. I’ll follow that up with my perspective on bone health and how best to support yourself and those you care about.

What Dr. Google or an MD might say about Bone Health

Google AI suggests that nutrition, exercise and lifestyle factors as well as balanced hormones and genetics have an impact on bone health. It’s one of the few health topics that bring nutrition, exercise and lifestyle factors to the forefront when you search the topic. Dr. Google even suggests that supplementation might be necessary to maintain strong bone health. While I agree in principle, the natural solutions your doctor might suggest are likely missing some key ingredients. I’ll fill in those missing links for you later.

Bones are continually undergoing remodeling, breaking down and building up. People reach their peak bone density at about age 30 and lifestyle, diet and exercise impact how your bones continue to build up after breaking down.

The most common condition of the bones is osteoporosis, characterized by weakened, brittle bones that are losing density. People are often first diagnosed with osteoporosis when they’re being treated for a broken bone.

Bone related diseases are linked to nutritional deficiencies, sedentary lifestyle, hormone imbalance, genetics, aging, infections, and injury. Dr. Google indicates that many prescribed drugs are known to affect bone metabolism and cause bone loss. For example, heparin, warfarin, cyclosporine, glucocorticoids, medroxyprogesterone acetate, cancer drugs, and thyroid hormone can cause bone loss.¹

Such drugs are known to interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption inevitably leading to bone loss.

Symptoms associated with Bone Health challenges like osteoporosis

Most commonly, people might have bone pain, back pain, joint pain and swelling, or fractures resulting from low impact activity like sneezing or coughing. It’s suggested that you visit a doctor if such pain lingers for a long time and seems to worsen over time.

Dr. Google might suggest medical testing

Once people hit ages 65 to 70, they are often sent for screening tests for osteoporosis. This is often done in absence of any symptoms but to get a reading on bone density and identify current or future fracture risk. A dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) is used, sending two different X-ray beams through the body to measure the amount of calcium and other minerals in the bone.

Dr. Google might … I mean, Will, suggest drugs

Let me just vent for a minute! It’s shocking to me that drugs are prescribed to slow down bone breakdown and stimulate bone growth. It’s also shocking that these drugs, bisphosphonates and denosumab, can cause a break or crack in the middle of the thighbone, and death of bone tissue in the jaw.

Some drugs are offered in pill form, but you have to remain standing for at least a half hour, so it doesn’t regurgitate and burn your esophagus. Others are given by IV infusion because they are not tolerated in the stomach. The drugs are juggled, I believe, so you avoid long-term debilitating side effects, but doctors continue to prescribe osteoporosis medication.

Unfortunately, the danger of the drugs being prescribed overshadows the little lifestyle advice (resistance exercise, lifting weights, eating healthy) offered to those diagnosed with osteoporosis.

What I say about Bone Health

In mainstream medicine, once a woman reaches menopause, the topic of osteoporosis becomes a serious one. Ten million people in the US have osteoporosis with 80 percent of those being women, and half of those women are expected to suffer some kind of fracture due to osteoporosis.

What makes menopause the target of osteoporosis is that women can lose up to 20 percent of their bone mass in the five to seven years following menopause. If the bones are thin to start with, then there is an increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

Porous bone defines the condition. We are told that, remarkably, by our early twenties, we have built up about 98 percent of our bone mass. From then on it’s a matter of remodeling as minerals are added and subtracted from bone. When more minerals are broken down from bone than replaced, the bones become thin. For example, during pregnancy, if you don’t take enough calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, and boron, your bones are scavenged for these minerals to create the skeletal structure of your growing child.

Where did osteoporosis come from?

It turns out that osteoporosis does not have a history. It appears to be new disease. Is it another condition caused by our “civilized” lifestyle? Whenever I write about a disease, I consult my 1892 “Practical Home Physician” to get a sense of the evolution of the condition. There is no mention of anything resembling osteoporosis and it’s very important that we identify what has happened since then to make osteoporosis so prevalent.

Chronically low intake of calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, boron, and vitamins K, B12, B6, and folic acid lead to osteoporosis. Chronically high intake of protein, sodium chloride, alcohol, and caffeine adversely affect bone health. It appears that the typical Western diet (high in protein and salt and in refined, processed foods), lack of exercise, and lack of supplemental nutrient intake contributes to the epidemic of osteoporosis. I consider osteoporosis to be another lifestyle condition, much like hypertension or obesity, which is amenable to the right diet and supplements.

The main mineral of bone is calcium. That’s why most doctors advise calcium supplements to prevent osteoporosis. However, along with calcium there are phosphate, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc, manganese, and molybdenum. It might surprise you (it certainly surprises typical medical professionals) that 65 percent of the body’s magnesium is stored in bones and teeth. But when bone ash studies were done, it was mostly calcium that showed up whereas magnesium was burnt off making calcium be the “cure” for osteoporosis.

Most people imagine that bone is just a dead tissue to which we can add some calcium to make it stronger. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bone is constantly changing, being remodeled, and, if we give it the right building blocks, even improving. I’ve read that our entire skeleton is remodeled every five years. To me that’s great news. It means we have a chance to make a whole new skeleton in the next five years. With the right diet, nutrients, and exercise we can make it much stronger and much healthier.

Supplements for Bone Health:

We are not suffering from a deficiency of osteoporosis drugs, but we do have a deficiency of bone nutrients and a surfeit of bad lifestyle habits that serve to create the condition. Many women are presently dealing with severe osteoporosis and may need prescription medication. But this does not mean that the drug is going to take care of everything. Eating mineral-rich foods, taking bone nutrients, and exercising will be invaluable. Remember, you can have a completely new skeleton in five years if you give it the right building blocks.

Magnesium’s role in bone health is multifaceted:

• Adequate levels of magnesium are essential for the absorption and metabolism of calcium.
• Magnesium stimulates a particular hormone, calcitonin, that helps to preserve bone structure and draws calcium out of the blood and soft tissues back into the bones, preventing some forms of arthritis and kidney stones.
• Magnesium suppresses another bone hormone called parathyroid, preventing it from breaking down bone.
• Magnesium converts vitamin D into its active form so that it can help calcium absorption.
• Magnesium is also required to activate an enzyme that is required to form new calcium crystals.
• Magnesium regulates active calcium transport.
• Magnesium is necessary to make the soft tissue scaffolding to hold calcium and the other minerals that make up the hard bone structure.

Furthermore, the following supplements can be considered, in addition to a clean diet and regular exercise, to support bone health:

Magnesium should be in the picometer, stabilized ionic for. And the dose should be around 600mg per day. This liquid magnesium is diluted in a liter of sea-salted water and sipped throughout the day.

Vitamin D is a prohormone, which is necessary for the absorption of calcium. Twenty minutes of sunshine a day, without sunscreen, provides a healthy dose of vitamin D. But most vitamin D blood tests show that we may need about 5,000iu a day along with a dose of vitamin K2.

Vitamin C is a necessary building block for collagen with is also part of the soft tissue scaffolding of bone. One to two grams a day may be necessary and some of your vitamin C should be food-based, the rest can be ascorbic acid.

Vitamin B Complex – methylated and food based proves several B vitamins that are necessary for bone formation.

Zinc, Boron, Manganese and several other multiple minerals help create healthy bones. They can be found in my picometer multiple minerals.

I know you’re reading this blog because you’re already tapped into the kind of information I share about illness and disease and their underlying explanations, solutions and interventions. And I know you’re likely frustrated because you’re in possession of this information that could help someone you care about. Please forward this blog to someone you care about who has questions and concerns about their bone health.

Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future.

¹https://www.uptodate.com/contents/drugs-that-affect-bone-metabolism