Take care of your bones

This disease usually targets people after the age of 45 and is more common in post menopausal women. Often called the silent disease because bone loss occurs without symptoms, there is an urgent need for more awareness of osteoporosis.

According to Consultant Orthopaedic, Joint Replacement and Hip Resurfacing Surgeon, Dr Sanjeev Jain, people may not know that they have osteoporosis until their bones become so weak that a sudden strain, bump or fall causes a hip fracture or a vertebral collapse. “Pain and weakness all over is a common symptom. Unfortunately, in many cases, the first real ‘symptom’ is a broken bone. Loss of height, with the gradual curvature of the back, (caused by vertebral compression fractures) may be the only physical sign of osteoporosis,” says Dr Jain. The best ways to prevent it and to protect your bones is to do exercises that help in strengthening bones. “Building bones through adequate calcium intake and exercises when you are young is an investment that will pay off years later with a reduced risk of hip and other fractures.

An inactive person should start these exercises slowly and gradually increase the intensity. Brisk walking, jogging, climbing stairs are especially good. Muscle building exercises are not recommended for people with osteoporosis. In pregnant, lactating, nursing, post-menopausal women and in men and women over 65 years, the requirement of calcium and vitamin D increases. Vitamin D can be obtained from eggs, liver or even spending about 15 minutes in the sunshine is good. Apart from calcium, Vitamin D, K, B 6, B 12 and minerals like magnesium, zinc, manganese and silicon are also important in strengthening bones. To prevent menopausal bone loss, estrogen replacement therapy, calcitonin, bisphosphonate, parathyroid hormone therapy and other medications should be considered,” he says.

Orthopaedic and Joint Replacement Surgeon, Dr Dilip D Tanna, says that the human body forms bones until the age of 35 years after which new bone formation is negligible. “This remains our highest bone mass. Post 35 years our bone mass remains steady until 45 – 50 years after which it gradually begins to lose bone mass due to menopause. Most women lose around one per cent of their bone mass each year post menopause. Osteoporosis can be detected only over a period of time with a few tests. Include a lot of calcium rich alternatives in your diet. These include dry beans, such as black-eyed peas, kidney beans and black beans, turnip greens, collard greens, broccoli, sardines, tofu and fortified orange juice. Almonds, sunflower and sesame seeds are also a rich source of calcium,” says Dr Tanna.

Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr Sanjay Agarwala, concludes saying that that osteoporosis isn’t always hereditary. “There can be a predisposition mediated through hormonal lack. The peak bone mass i.e. the amount and quality of bone is genetically linked. However, environmental factors and personal habits determine the final quality of bone. On needs to replenish stores of calcium and vitamin D and at times consider hormones that can makes bones grow. One can prevent this illness by going in for weight bearing exercises during young age and maintaining the intake of calcium and vitamin D,” says Dr Agarwala.

Some common myths about Osteoporosis
- My mother didn’t have it, so I won’t get it.
- I’ll worry about it after it later in life, I’m too young for it right now.
- Rich people don’t get it since they eat well.
- I have a daily intake of 250 mg of calcium. (Minimum intake of 1200 -1500 mg is essential.)
- I have no time for exercises.

Depression linked with osteoporosis in young women

Washington, Nov 30 (IANS) Research has shown a clear connection between depression and a loss of bone mass, leading to osteoporosis and fractures.

The study led by Raz Yirmiya, head of the brain and behaviour lab at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), and Itai Bab, head of the bone lab, found that a link between depression and bone loss is particularly strong among young women. 

Osteoporosis is the most widespread degenerative disease in the developed world, afflicting one out of three women and one in five men over 50. 

Sufferers experience decrease in bone density, which often leads to bone fractures. In many cases, these fractures cause severe disability and even death.

 Researchers assessed data from 23 research projects conducted in eight countries, comparing bone density among 2,327 people suffering from depression against 21,141 non-depressed individuals.

 The results show clearly that depressed individuals have a substantially lower bone density than non-depressed people — that depression is associated with a markedly elevated activity of cells that break down bone (osteoclasts).

 Yirmiya and Bab found that the association between depression and bone loss was stronger in women than men, especially young women before the end of their monthly period, said an HUJ release.

Yirmya and Bab propose that all individuals psychiatrically diagnosed with major depression are at risk for developing osteoporosis, with depressed young women showing the highest risk.

Being physically active when young has important implications for the prevention of osteoporosis in old age

Exercise is a key determinant of a strong skeleton. When we exercise, our bones get stronger. On the other hand, when we park it on the couch and watch 24 straight hours of 24, we tend to lose bone. This isn’t a good thing given that a strong skeleton offsets the risk of bone fragility and fracture. While it has been known for some time that bones become stronger in response to exercise in youth, bone experts have debated whether these benefits will persist into old age when osteoporosis is most prevalent.

The concept that exercise in youth is important for bone health comes from several important studies1. One study demonstrated that as much as 26% of bone mineral is accrued in a two-year period during puberty2. This indicates that youth is a critical time to assure the attainment of a strong adult skeleton. Moreover, several human and animal studies show that bone responds more favorably to exercise during youth than in adulthood. For example, a study of female racquet-sport players demonstrated that if the players began playing at or before menarche rather than after it, there would be a much greater benefit in terms of bone mineral content between the dominant and non-dominant arm bones3. Studies like these tell us that youth is an important time to be physically active to build a strong skeleton, but evidence has been lacking as to whether these benefits will persist into old age. As you can imagine, a research study that randomized young children to be physically active or to be sedentary for their entire lives would not only be impractical but also unethical due to what we know about the benefits of exercise.

A recent animal study4 provides some much-needed evidence for this debate. Warden and colleagues from Indiana University explored the effects of exercise in youth on bone strength in old age…in rats. The researchers exercised the right arm bones of young rats 3 days per week for 7 weeks when the rats were young. The left arm bones of the rats were not exercised and served as controls for comparison. The exercise was then discontinued for the rest of the rats’ lives. In old age, the exercised arms of the rats had 24% greater bone strength than the unexercised arm bones—demonstrating that, despite cessation of exercise before adulthood, exercise during youth had skeletal benefits that lasted into old age.

What does this mean for us? Well, since we aren’t rats (unless you are reading this, and your name is Splinter), it is fair to ask if these findings apply to us. The best way we can answer this question is to say that, theoretically, our bones should adapt to exercise in a similar manner to those of the rats in the reviewed study. The benefits that increased the bone strength of the rats were structural. Basically, the long bones increased in diameter, which made them stronger. This phenomenon also occurs in human bones in response to increased exercise. So what should we do about this evidence? Quite simply, yet importantly, these and related findings suggest that it is important to get kids to be physically active now in order to prevent bone fragility when they are older and at greatest risk for osteoporotic fracture.

Look for a future blog about the relationship between bone and menstrual health!

Works Cited

1. Petit MA MH, McKay HA, Lloyd TA. Bone Acquisition in Adolescence. In: R Marcus DF, D Nelson, C Rosen, ed. Osteoporosis. 3 ed. New York: Academic Press; 2007.

2. Bailey DA. The Saskatchewan Pediatric Bone Mineral Accrual Study: Bone mineral acquisition during the growing years. Int J Sports Med. 1997;18:S191-S194.

3. Kannus P, Haapasalo H, Sankelo M, et al. Effect of starting age of physical activity on bone mass in the dominant arm of tennis and squash players. Ann Intern Med. 1995;123:27-31.

4. Warden SJ CA, Nelson IR, Turner CH. Exercise when young provides lifelong benefits to bone structure and strength. JBMR. 2007;22(2):251-259.

Mature matters: Is osteoporosis preventable?

Q I am a post-menopausal woman who has been diagnosed with osteoporosis by my GP. I have a healthy 18-year-old daughter and I am worried she will develop it too. Are there any preventative measures she can take?

A Optimising health and reducing risk factors for developing osteoporosis are the priorities for maintaining healthy bones at a young age.

Calcium and vitamin D, exercise and stopping smoking will be beneficial in maintaining healthy bones and preventing osteoporosis. Most experts agree that calcium intake should be increased during the most important years of bone growth: the pre-teen and teenage years.

Vitamin D is increasingly being recognised for its importance in improving bone health. Teenage girls consume only 60pc of the recommended amount of calcium, and should be encouraged to drink more milk rather than soft drinks. Eating disorders can increase a girl’s risk of developing osteoporosis.

Young bones respond more to exercise than adult bones. The most effective exercises are weight-bearing ones such as walking, aerobics and dancing.

However too much exercise can harm bone growth, especially when accompanied by weight loss and reduced sexual hormone production that leads to cessation of periods. Genetics are important in some patients for developing osteoporosis and these genes may be passed on to children. It is unlikely that your daughter has osteoporosis at this age, but treating any risk factors early on will reduce her chance of developing osteoporosis in later life.

Q I have been told I have thin bones following a recent bone scan requested by my GP. He has started me on calcium and vitamin D tablets. Do I really need to take them?

AThin bones may indicate that you have a condition called osteopenia, which can develop into osteoporosis if left untreated. Provided you have not had a fracture or other significant risk factors, calcium and vitamin D have a beneficial role in reducing the amount of bone being lost. Vitamin D has been shown to improve muscle strength and reduce falls. There are some studies suggesting that vitamin D may reduce mortality in fallers, reduce certain types of cancer and improve some skin conditions such as psoriasis.

Patients attending the osteoporosis clinic at St James’s Hospital who are not on calcium and vitamin D supplements are often vitamin D deficient. Foods that contain vitamin D and calcium include fish, fortified milk and green leaf vegetables.

Prof J Bernard Walsh, Consultant Physician Medical Directorate for the Elderly, Dr Joseph Brown, Research Fellow in Bone Health, St James’s Hospital, email ageing@independent.ie

Irish Independent

Save Your Bones, Eat Stir-Fry

The news is good if you don’t do much dairy but get a frequent hankering for Chinese food.

Stir-fry dishes often include staples like broccoli, bok choy, and edamame (soybeans) — popular veggies that are bursting with bone-strengthening calcium. Even better, these and other Chinese stir-fry favorites have a chemical makeup that allows your body to easily absorb the calcium. Just go easy on the soy sauce — which is essentially liquid sodium — because the more salt you take in, the more calcium you’re likely to lose.

As you’ve probably heard, other green, leafy vegetables, such as spinach and Swiss chard, contain calcium, but they also contain a certain acid, called oxalate, that limits how much of the calcium your body can absorb. In fact, you’d need to eat more than four spinach salads to get the amount of calcium in one made with Chinese spinach (and it’s not even a top veggie, calcium-wise). Not a Chinese-food fan? Some beans — particularly white cannellini, a staple in Italian cooking — are also a good source of calcium. But they’re the exception. Many dried beans are rich in phytate, another acid that also interferes with calcium absorption.

New milk product that ‘locks up’ calcium in bones

NESTLE recently launched its Nesvita Calciplus – a high calcium milk specially formulated to slow down bone loss by maintaining the calcium in the bones.

Nesvita Calciplus helps build strong bones while reducing loss of bone mass with “calcilock” – an outstanding innovation developed by the Nestle Research Centre in Switzerland. It is a combination of nutrients formulated specifically to reduce bone loss due to aging.

The product is targeted at women aged between 20 and 35 years who want to take charge of their bone health by building their bone mass while they are still young.

Two glasses of Nesvita Calciplus daily provides 1,360mg of calcium, which is sufficient to meet the daily recommended nutrient intake of calcium for adults.

Coupled with the right combination of bone-specific nutrients, it helps slow down bone loss due to aging.

“Young women are encouraged to build their bone mass between the ages of 20 and 30 years old,” said Nestle Group Brand Manager for Adult Nutrition, Lau Phaih Yean.

“Beyond the age of 30, bone mass can only be maintained, and not increased. Women are prone to losing bone mass particularly once menopause sets in, which is why it is necessary to start young and not wait until it’s too late!

“Nesvita Calciplus milk powder is also non-fattening which is important to weight-conscious women who want to drink milk for the nutritional benefit but not the fat,” said Lau.

To avoid depleting bones of their calcium content, Nestle urges women to make a habit of observing a balanced diet that provides enough calcium and important minerals to achieve two important bone-preserving goals – building bone mass before the age of 30 and protecting the calcium in the bones.

The human body needs calcium for building bones and for other crucial functions such as blood clotting, muscle contraction and transmission of nerve impulses.

If calcium in the diet is low, the body will proceed to “demineralise” the bones in order to release the calcium contained inside to keep other bodily functions going.

With time, bones lose their density thus becoming brittle, porous, weak and prone to breakage, resulting in osteoporosis which literally means “porous bones”.

Nesvita Calciplus with “calcilock” is available in 600g packs of powder and one-litre UHT packs at all leading hypermarkets and supermarkets nationwide.

For more information, contact Nestle Consumer Services at 1 800 88 3433.

Are you below average height?

Do you feel you are stuck being short? Do you believe you are trapped into you current height? This simply isn’t true. You are not stuck with your current height. With the proper techniques, you can start growing taller today.

Lets begin by discussing how your body grows in the first place. You bones play an essential role in this. When you are very young, your skeleton is mostly comprised of cartilage. Cartilage is a pliable material. You may have heard that sharks skeletons are made of the same thing. It helps them flex and swim through the water.

Your cartilage gradually fuses and hardens to form mature bones. Over time the cartilage material is replaced by solid bone.

Cartilage growth plates play a gigantic role in your growth spurts during puberty. Your bones gradually lengthen throughout puberty. Bones grow longer at the ends. Eventually the grow plates become inactive. This occurs in adulthood. After the growth plates have stopped, no exercise or stretching cab reactivate them.

In tremendous cases, a number of people resort to bone lengthening surgery to grow taller. Unfortunately, this surgery is very risky in lots of ways. Not only is it not easy to even find a doctor that isfit to do this, but the complications afterward can make life very difficult indeed.

The surgery involves your bones being broken. Then metal plates are installed so that there is a gap between the broken bones. Gradually, the bones grow back together, resultant in greater than before height. However, oftentimes the place where the bones grew together is very feeble. Breaks are very common. You risk nerve damage, paralysis, and even death by undergoing this surgery.

However, there are lots of alternative methods in how to get taller. Having a high-quality diet and exercise can be wildly effective in getting taller and staying taller. When you are youthful , it is extremely vital that you exercise regularly and have a diet rich in calcium, protein, amino acids, and additional nutrients so that your body has the energy it needs to grow and replenish itself. Forgetting to do this can result in underdeveloped growth. Similarly, continuing to neglect your body in this manner can result in damaged bones and even shrinkage when you become elderly. A good diet can also increase your natural production of human growth hormone, which signals to grow taller. Regular exercise also induces human growth hormone in your body.

Pull ups are a great exercise to help you grow taller. The hanging portion of a pull up allows gravity to reverse spinal compression. Normally gravity pushes down on you compressing the spine. But by hanging from a horizontal bar overhead, gravity pulls you down reversing the effect. Plus, the resistance training envolved in performing a pull up will stimulate your body to produce human growth hormone naturally.