How to Prevent Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a condition in which bones become weak and brittle. It is a disease where decreased bone strength increases the risk of a broken bone. Osteoporosis is the most common reason for a broken bone among people who are old. This occurs more often as people get older like many health problems.

If people can stay healthy as they age, they can avoid many health problems until they are older. As I have researched the prevention and cure of many health problems, the same things keep coming up as a common theme.

Humans were designed to do a certain amount of work that for many is now considered exercise. As life was made easier, it made the health of people worse. It is hard to find any health challenges or diseases that cannot be prevented or improved with exercise.

Even a mental problem like depression can be prevented or helped with exercise. An expert researcher of depression says that exercise is medicine. The specific exercise that can help with preventing osteoporosis is weight bearing exercise. Here is something funny about this. One form of this is walking.

Being overweight is bad for health but the heavier one is, the more weight bearing an exercise like walking is. But even better that walking is lifting weights or resistance training. Just like muscles get stronger from lifting weights, it also strengthens bones to have the extra force on them.

Not only does this strengthen the bone but by strengthening the muscle around the bone, helps to prevent it from getting injured. I was very athletic growing up and did martial arts and gymnastics that can increase one's chance of breaking bones. I also did yoga but this is not an activity where people are likely to get injured. With all these activities that I did while growing up, including trampolining, I only broke one bone.

I remember being at a pool during the summer. Another boy that I did not know, noticed that I was muscular. He asked why that was and I told him that I lifted weights. I guess he wanted to prove that having strength does not make you a good fighter so he challenged me to a fight.

He was taller than me so I guess he figured that that makes one a good fighter. I had not told him that I was a good fighter since I learned that in martial arts and practiced it. He never asked about that. So it only took a minute for him to call off the fight since he saw that I was also faster than him and had fast reflexes. Some of this was inherited and some came from training.

Of course it is common knowledge that exercise helps to prevent cancer and cardiovascular problems as well as other things. In fact if someone lies in bed and does not do anything, their muscle will atrophy and they will not be able to do anything. So it is similar with bones. So weight bearing exercise is vital to prevent your bones from becoming weak and brittle.

Here are other things that Wikipedia lists to avoid osteoporosis. Many things do not have a cure since there are a number of different factors that affect it. Osteoporosis is a good example of this. Excessive consumption of alcohol decreases your bone density. It also kills brain cells, hurts the liver and makes it more likely for you to fall.

A vitamin D deficiency contributes to osteoporosis but this also contributes to many health problems and this is why they say that we have a vitamin D deficiency pandemic. There is not enough of this nutrient in food and people are not getting enough sunlight, that is the best source of it. Also people do not get enough in supplements since the high numbers scare them. One milligram of vitamin D is 40,000 IE.

Smoking also contributes to osteoporosis and people know this is terrible for health, but 20% of Americans still smoke. Heavy metal toxicity can also contribute to weak bones and some people have that. The phosphoric acid in soft drinks increase the risk of osteoporosis at least in women.

A large government study was done that showed the amount of calcium in diet has nothing to do with a lack of bone density. There is a whole theory about if you consume foods that are too acid, this acidity must be neutralized by taking calcium out of the bones. It then combines with the acid and this substance is then urinated out. The calcium cannot be recycled. This is why Wikipedia says that milk builds weak bones. Many of the foods high in acid are high protein foods. The most alkaline food that there is, is green tea so that can help with this.

Wikipedia says, "Research has found an association between diets high in animal protein and increased urinary calcium, and have been linked to an increase in fractures." It also mentioned that not enough omega-3 essential fatty acids and too much of the omega-6 essential fatty acids is a risk factor for osteoporosis. This also causes many other health problems and this even includes depression.

Wikipedia also says that excess sodium is another risk factor for weak bones. This comes from salt that is not a food but a chemical. This causes people to gain excess weight by causing them to retain water. WebMD.com says that consuming salt is worse for health than smoking. It also causes high blood pressure that is called the silent killer that causes heart attacks and stroke.