Bone health

A new approach to bone health that’s natural and effective

by Dr. Susan Brown, PhD

Our skeleton and all its individual bones have an amazing gift of self-repair and are capable of remaining strong enough to support us throughout our entire lives. If this is true — and it is — how is it that we find ourselves in the midst of a bone health crisis in the US?

The commonly accepted reasons for the overwhelming amount of osteoporosis and poor bone health, particularly in American women, involve calcium intake, estrogen levels, and bone density. But when I first started studying bone health over 25 years ago, I began to realize that these firmly-held beliefs about osteoporosis are not entirely true.

As a medical anthropologist, I knew that most everyone loses some bone with age, but I was puzzled by the fact that older people in many other countries have a much lower incidence of osteoporotic fracture than we do, even though they consume far less calcium. Further, in many countries where women have lower estrogen levels than in the US, fractures are much less common. I was also struck by the finding that osteoporosis is rare in certain countries, like Japan, where people generally have lower bone density than their American counterparts.

Low calcium intake, the natural lowering of estrogen levels at menopause, and low bone density are not the main reasons for our declining bone health. And our fixation on these factors has been keeping us from uncovering the true causes. My own personal passion has become a quest to find the true explanation for the epidemic of osteoporosis in this and other Westernized countries — and how to stop it.

Let me share with you what I’ve learned about how and why our bones — and our bodies — work as they do, and a practical and effective guide to good bone health.

The natural state of bones

Though we may not be aware of it, our bones are constantly being renewed with fresh tissue, which is generated to replace old, worn-out segments of bone and reinforce areas that need to be stronger. It’s a natural formula for give and take that is normally able to maintain healthy bones indefinitely. While the bones tend to become thinner as we get older, it is possible — and natural — to retain enough bone mass and strength to withstand the stresses and strains of daily life for the remainder of our lives.

But when the natural balance between regeneration and breakdown is disrupted, bone health deteriorates and weaknesses begin to appear in the bone structure. This imbalance between bone breakdown and bone renewal has become the norm among American women — for reasons I’ll describe below — and its effects extend beyond bone health to jeopardize our total physical condition.

Bone: the great giver

Our internal systems are so “interconnected” that poor health in one part of your body can quickly undermine the integrity and wellness of other areas. The skeleton is connected to many critical survival roles within the body — well beyond that of giving us rigidity and locomotion.

For example, bones serve as a storehouse of essential alkalizing mineral compounds which transfer into the blood on a minute-to minute-basis to maintain blood calcium homeostasis and pH (acid-alkaline) balance. Our bones give mineral compounds to the larger system, and then build back up through the nourishment we provide them. Our survival is contingent on this constant flow of information between our internal systems, and the “giving’ function of bone.

This interconnectivity explains why steps that improve bone health also create better health for your entire body. My motto, “Better Bones, Better Body,” means that everything we do to build stronger bones and reduce our risk of fracture should also be good for the entire body. Taking a drug that might reduce fracture risk a little, but that also might cause cancer or severe digestive disorders, does not make sense to me. My life-supporting approach to bone health blends critical findings from years of medical, nutritional, and anthropological research with a holistic view of the human body. It honors the way our bones evolved to work and folds in new revelations about how our environment, culture, the food we eat, and even the thoughts we have, affect our bones and overall health.

A natural approach works with your bones

In the natural world, bones can manage wear and tear quite efficiently. However, the multiplicity of bone-depleting factors — various toxins, chemicals, prescription drugs, emotional distress, bone-damaging foods, and an extraordinary metabolic acid load — makes it difficult to sustain bone homeostasis. And inadequate intake of key bone-building nutrients (at least 19 nutrients in addition to calcium) causes the orderly ebb and flow between bone breakdown and rebuilding to go haywire.

If we work with our bodies, we can uncover a fully life-supporting path to maintaining and regaining bone health. Understanding the physical processes that normally maintain bones guide us to find the tools to naturally improve the condition of our bones.

The real causes of imbalanced bone metabolism

Our modern lifestyle, inadequate and imbalanced nutrition, an extraordinary bone-depleting acid-load, lack of exposure to sunlight, dieting, smoking, hormonal imbalance, worry and emotional distress, lack of exercise, medication use, and a long list of other factors, have negative impacts on the state of our bones.

Bones require certain elements to stay healthy: the right nutrients in steady supply, appropriate exercise, protection from toxins and poisons, a balanced diet high in acid-buffering alkaline mineral reserves, adequate sunlight for vitamin D supplementation, and so on. When these elements are delivered regularly, the bones respond by growing stronger and more resilient.

But remember, bone strength is of secondary importance to your bones’ role in maintaining blood homeostasis and pH balance. If your bone burden is too high and bone-nourishing factors are not adequately supplied, bone still gives of itself, but the long-term cost will be osteoporosis and fractures.

One look at our overloaded camel will give you an idea of how easy it is for our bones to collapse under the weight of the modern Western lifestyle. The journey towards healthier bones starts by removing one burden at a time from the bundle of bone-depleting factors on your camel’s back. Moving in the right direction is the most important thing, even if the steps are small.

You can reduce your bone burden

Only about 20% of our total burden is beyond our reach — things like gender, genetic makeup, and age. We have a tremendous amount of power over the elements which affect bone health. Some of us may indulge in addictive habits, or eat too much sugar, or not get enough sleep. Many women allow stress to balloon out of control for days or weeks until they get so used to having chronic stress that it becomes “normal.” But all of these issues — and more — can be reduced or eliminated, and that can dramatically lighten our overall burden.

Here are just a few examples of how you can reduce your bone burden, starting now:

Alkalize your diet. A diet high in acid-forming foods weighs heavily on your bones’ mineral reserves. Bones donate their minerals to neutralize acids, a process that is necessary for survival. By consuming fewer acid-forming foods (like animal protein, processed foods, sugar and caffeine) and more alkalizing foods (like vegetables, fruit, and nuts) your bones will be able to retain more of their minerals for building strength and density.

Detoxify. The American way of life exposes us to a wide spectrum of environmental toxins which accelerate the process of bone loss. Removing or neutralizing the effects of toxins is possible, and suggestions include drinking purified or filtered water, or teas, to help dilute toxins and move them out of the body, eating natural, organic foods that are nutrient-rich and free of antibiotics and hormones, providing the body with a high level of antioxidants through foods and supplements, and washing fruits and vegetables to remove pesticides and contaminants.

Reduce inflammation. An overactive inflammatory response, which generates excess cortisol, can push the bone breakdown mechanism into overdrive and cause actual bone loss. If you have certain chronic health conditions — such as asthma, diabetes, fibromyalgia or other pain syndromes, autoimmune disease, arthritis, gluten intolerance or sensitivity, or even heart disease — these are signposts that inflammation could be a particular problem for your individual bone health. (For more information see our article on inflammation and bones.)

Manage stress. Stress, negative emotions, and depression figure prominently in the deterioration of bone health through the effects that stress hormones (such as cortisol, again, and adrenaline) have on bone metabolism. So find ways to remove some of the emotional stressors from your life and invite in more relaxation, appreciation, and enjoyment. (See our article on changing your lifestyle for bone health.)

You can increase your bone health support

At the same time you work to reduce the burden on your bones, be sure to increase the support you’re giving them. This bi-directional approach is the most effective way to restore balance to your bones.

Examples of how to increase the support to your bones include:

Supplement your nutrition. One of the simplest ways to make sure that your bones have what they need to build strong, flexible new bone is to provide it in supplemental form. A high-quality, pharmaceutical-grade multivitamin/mineral containing the full spectrum of bone-building nutrients can offer your bones the building blocks they need to recover strength and flexibility.

Exercise. The pressure and tension forces exerted on bones during exercise trigger activity of bone-building cells and help to build new bone. It’s important, though, that your exercise regimen be balanced — that is, it should contain stretching, weight-bearing, and cardiovascular exercises that require effort, but that aren’t going to over-stress your body, particularly if you have already had a fracture or have a high risk of fracture.

Better bones and a healthy body: A great new way to live each day

Recovering bone health starts with understanding that osteoporosis is the negative, long-term result of necessary, short-term (in fact, essential) coping mechanisms. The natural process of bone breakdown is meant to remove weakened bone and/or supply the blood with critical, life-sustaining calcium and alkalizing compounds. This process serves as both the first step in the ongoing bone renewal process and a key part of blood chemistry balancing. But it is meant to be a “rescue” measure and should be coupled with plentiful replacement of the extracted nutrients.

So often, the conventional treatment methods for osteoporosis actually work against the body’s normal biology and upset the balance even more. Knowing — and accepting — how your particular lifestyle affects your bone health makes it even easier to adopt a healthier new lifestyle which harmonizes with the natural way your body works. When you incorporate these changes into your daily life, you can prevent, halt, or even reverse, the effects of osteoporosis.

 

Last Modified Date: 05/25/2011
Principal Author: Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD