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How calcium can Help Prevent Bone Loss |
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How calcium can Help Prevent Bone Loss
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Darrell Miller | 11/08/13 |
Date:
November 08, 2013 09:59 AM
Author: Darrell Miller
(dm@vitanetonline.com)
Subject: How calcium can Help Prevent Bone Loss
What is bone loss?
Bones are always in a flux. Since it's living tissue, old bone is absorbed, and new bone is built up. This process is referred to as remodeling. Bone loss occurs when there is absorption of more bone than is being built up.
What causes it?
Bone loss is a natural process that comes with age. There are factors that are beyond human control like genetics, sex, and ethnicity, that contribute to loss of bone. However, some lifestyle factors that can be controlled for instance, being physically inactive, low hormone levels, that is, estrogen in females, and testosterone in males, habits like smoking and drinking alcohol do contribute to faster loss of bone.
When you are intoxicated, you risk falling and breaking a bone. Alcohol cases loss of magnesium via urine. Smokers generally have weaker bones. Female smokers are even at a higher risk of bone fractures after menopause. They also begin their menopause early due to reduced estrogen levels. Both male and female smokers are thinner, thus tend to have less bone mass and take longer to heal in case of fractures.
How to salvage the situation
The best way to prevent bone loss is by ensuring that you develop very strong bones during the first 30 years of your life and then minimize their loss in adulthood. This is how to go about it:
Ensure that you intake vitamin D in your diet, expose yourself to early morning or evening sunlight, and take supplements if need be. Vitamin D is very helpful when calcium levels are low in the body. It is converted to its active form reducing loss of calcium via urine in the kidney, and increasing its absorption in the small intestine.
Intake a lot of calcium too, as there are two sources of calcium in your body: via your diet and from your bones. It is the latter that is dangerous. Your body will absorb calcium from the bones if there isn't enough in the body. This calcium is really difficult to replace.
Intake a diet with magnesium too. It helps in absorption of calcium. If there is excess calcium in the body, one could suffer from arthritis as it will collect in the soft tissues.References:
- //www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/calcium-full-story/#bone-loss
- //www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Bone/Osteoporosis/osteoporosis_ff.asp
- //www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000506.htm
