If you think of your body as a building, your bones are the framing. No strong bones, the whole thing would collapse. And this is a good analogy for what happens when we do not take good care of our bones. Over time, the body loses more and more bone, until we develop osteoporosis and "collapse" in the form of bone fracturing.
about half of all women over 50, and about one in four men will break a bone because of osteoporosis, a condition of weakening the bone affecting about 10 million of Americans, with about 34 million risk.
Muscle Build Fat Loss Workout - Osteoporosis Tips: Diet and Exercise for Stronger, Healthier Bones
You can not return the bone, once lost, but you can help maximize bone formation and minimize bone loss, which can lead to osteoporosis. Researchers estimate that things that you do not have overview - such as genetic factors, sex, age and race - control about 50% to 90% of your bone mass. But you can help protect your bones and reduce the risk of osteoporosis in two key ways: nutrition and exercise.
If you want to build stronger bones, you need three key elements: calcium, protein and vitamin D. Bones are widely composed of a protein - collagen - calcium bound and other dash minerals). Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium so you can do your job building strong bones.
In 2010, the Medicine Institute released new guidelines as to how many people of calcium and vitamin D need. Most adults should get between 600 and 800 international vitamin D units (IUS) of vitamin D every day, and between 1,000 and 1,300 milligrams of daily calcium the highest levels are for postmenopausal women, adolescent girls and women who are pregnant or of nursing .
"It's very easy to find out how much calcium you're getting," says Deborah Sellmeyer, MD, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Metabolic Oset Center. "Just to eat random food, non-calcium, your diet contains about 250 mg calcium daily. To get to what you need is about 1,000 for the middle adult, or higher for adolescent girls and postmenopausal women - You will need to add more foods rich in calcium. "
There are many ways to get enough of calcium in your diet. Dairy products such as milk, yogurt and cheese have a lot of calcium as well as protein. "But you do not have to be a dairy to get good dietary sources of calcium," says Sellmeyer. Other options include:
- Fortless juices, cereals and oats
- Beans and legumes
- dark leafy green, such as broccoli and bok choy
- Salmon and sardines with bones
- Certain walnuts, such as almonds
"You can choose from a wide variety of fonts and may vary daily life. In days In which you do not get the maximum calcium, you can take a supplement, such as calcium citrate, "says Sellmeyer.
for vitamin D, often called the key that unlocks calcium in your body, the medical institute recommends between 600 and 800 IU per day. This is harder to achieve because our bodies mainly synthesize vitamin D in response to sunlight. "Between November and March, most places anywhere north of, say, Oklahoma, does not get enough UV rays to make vitamin D even if you stay out all day on a sunny winter day," says Sellmeyer. Good sources of vitamin D include:
- Fat fish such as salmon, mackerel and tuna
- Cod liver oil <98764352> Fortified dairy products
- Fortified cereals
- Meat liver
- Fortified orange juice
IOM recommendations on vitamin D have, in fact, were a bit controversial. Many bone specialists suggest that they are at the bottom end of the ideal. "They are a good place to start, and probably good recommendations for the general public," says Sellmeyer. "But if you have bone problems - a history of fractures, say, or long-term steroid use, or lots of osteoporosis in your family - you may need to consult a doctor and get your levels d verified."
Do not forget the third block of nutritional building of strong bones: protein. Your diet should contain many sources of lean protein, such as lean meats and fish, beans and cheese.
One way to see how important bone health exercise is to look at what happens with bone strength when people do not Exercise.
"People who have been put on the bed rest, people who suffer limb fixtures, and astronauts, who have much reduced physical activity because of the minimum actions of gravity and muscles pulling the bone - they all see A quick and deep effect on the skeletal system, "says Wendy Kohrt, PhD, Medicine Professor and research director for Geriatric Medicine at the University of Colorado. "People confined to bed rest for up to four months lose about 10% of their bone density in critical skeleton regions. It takes a long time to recover this."
Kohrt says evidence shows that weight exercise can build about 1% to 3% of the bone. This may not seem like much, but exercise can also strengthen the existing bone in ways that are more difficult to quantify. Landmark Nurses Health Study Research (Nhanes) shows that women who are at least four hours per week reduce hip fracture risk at about 40%.
Weight bearing exercises include walking, dancing, jogging, playing tennis. Swimming, although it is a wonderful exercise in many ways, does not particularly benefit bone health because it is not a weight support activity.
"I think only being physically active, standing on your feet and doing a variety of things, probably has benefits that we can not necessarily measure if we study a small group of subjects about a brief time interval As a year, "says Kohrt. "But if we look at a large population of people followed for many years, this level of activity has benefits for their bones."
There are also things you should not do if you want to take care of your bones. Tops on the list not NO: smoking. "This is definitely bad for your skeletal health," says Kohrt. Significant bone loss was found in men and women who smoke, and the more you smoke, the greater the risk of fracture. Some studies even suggest that second-hand smoke exposure in youth can increase the risk of low bone mass as adult.
If you are wondering about your bone health, there is a quick test at home that you can take to evaluate your overall risk of fracture. Called Fraque, was developed by the World Health Organization to help evaluate the risk of bone fracture. Just connect some numbers on the calculator - such as your age, height, weight, and some information, as if you smoke or take steroid medications - and this will give you a percentage risk of having a bone fracture in the next 10 years.
no matter the number you receive, however, always worth trying to bring you even lower with healthy lifestyle habits. Your bones support you and need you to support them.
