According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation (www.nof.org) : "Osteoporosis is a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break. If not prevented or if left untreated, osteoporosis can progress painlessly until a bone breaks. These broken bones, also known as fractures, occur typically in the hip, spine, and wrist."
While any bone can be affected, of special concern are fractures of the hip and spine. A hip fracture almost always requires hospitalization and major surgery. It can impair a person's ability to walk unassisted and may cause prolonged or permanent disability or even death. Spinal or vertebral fractures also have serious consequences, including loss of height, severe back pain, and deformity.
If you look at healthy bones you will see that there are small holes between the bone cells. In osteoporosis those pores are larger making the bones brittle and easy to break. The best way to prevent osteoporosis is to prevent bone loss in the first place.
Children and teenagers form new bone faster than they lose the old bone. This means their bones get denser and denser until they reach what experts call peak bone mass, which happens around 20 years old.
After you reach peak bone mass, the balance between bone loss and bone formation might start to change. In other words, you may slowly start to lose more bone than you form. In midlife, bone loss usually speeds up in both men and women. For most women, bone loss increases after menopause, when estrogen levels drop sharply. In fact, in the five to seven years after menopause, women can lose up to 20 percent or more of their bone density.
The best ways to prevent that massive loss of bone is to make sure you keep your calcium levels up. Taking a multivitamin can be helpful, but for menopausal/post menopausal women a higher dose of calcium may be needed. Calcium is nice on its own, but it is only part of the story. Vitamin D helps your body to absorb calcium.
The NOF recommends 1,200 mcg of calcium and 1,000mcg of vitamin D each day. If you have a severe deficiency of vitamin D you may need to take as much as 100,000 mcg per week.
The third aspect of preventing and treating osteoporosis is exercise. Bones are like muscles-- they strengthen as they are used. Here are some exercises that can be done: some are high impact and others are low impact for those who cannot do the high impact exercises.
High Impact Exercises
· High-impact aerobics
· Hiking
· Jogging/running
· Jumping Rope
· Stair climbing
· Tennis
· Dancing
Low Impact Exercises
Elliptical training machines
· Low impact aerobics
· Stair-step machines
· Walking (treadmill/outside)
The best approach to preventing osteoporosis is really three-pronged: keeping up levels of calcium, vitamin D, and exercise. Some of the calcium can be taken from your diet, so can the vitamin D. Exercise is a necessary evil for every age group, but is especially important for those of us who are over 50. I hope this information has been helpful. Be sure to check out the National Osteoporosis Foundation's website at www.nof.org for a lot of great information.
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Gregg Camp is a Santa Cruz real estate broker who sells Santa Cruz beach homes. He loves to walk the beach in front of Rio Del Mar Beach homes. He works also as a Seniors Real Estate Specialist.
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Word Count Appx. : 588 | Article Views 214 Published 20-08-2009