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Your Bones Are Always Working—Even When You're Not
We all know someone who has broken a bone. Many of us have, I have. And many of us know someone, usually an older person, who has broken their hip, and this can have devastating consequences. I'm from Obstetrics and Gynecology at the гƵ of Utah, and we are talking about osteoporosis today on the "7 Domains of Women's гƵ."
Our bones allow us to stand up straight and use our muscles, and drape our organs in muscles and skin. We don't usually think about them until they break. We think about our joints and our ligaments and tendons, and muscles when we use them or overuse them, and they hurt. But we really rarely think about our bones because they usually are quiet and they don't hurt very often.
Now our bones are not static the way we might see them on an X-ray or on TV, you know, all those forensic mystery stories where all that is left of the body is the bones that last for thousands of years. They are actually . . . well, we're alive in a dynamic state of slow, active, tiny breakdown of old and damaged bones by cells called osteoclasts. This is a process called resorption. This allows bones to rebuild by tiny cells called osteoblasts. So the osteoclasts break down, the osteoblasts build up, and this allows us to remodel and repair our bones.
In our early life, before our 30s, we are in the bone-building years. The bone-building is stronger than the bone resorption. We make our bones stronger. And our adolescent years have the most bone-strengthening time. In our middle years, mid-30s to about 50, we're in our bone stability time, bone resorption balances bone building, and our bone density stays about the same. In our later years, bone resorption outpaces bone building. Our bones are the most dense at about 35 for men and women. And men have denser bones than women. They are heavier, they do more hard work, and they don't have a menopause where estrogens decrease in women, and estrogen is important in bone building in men and women.
Osteoporosis: What It Is and Why It Happens
So what's osteoporosis? Well, bones are designed to stay intact under normal pressures. Anyone can break a bone in a car crash or a bad ski accident. Normal wear and tear includes falls. So our bones are designed to actually deal with normal falls. If our bones get thinner and they will, they'll break under what are called usual stresses, like a fall, not from a great height, but just like falling down. The condition of thin bones is called osteoporosis. And fractures that occur under common conditions, like a misstep or gentle falls, now that's presuming there are gentle falls, are called fragility fractures. The bones most likely to fracture are the hip and the wrist, and the thoracic vertebrae.
How to Naturally Strengthen Your Bones Every Day
So, how does normal bone stay strong? Well, bones get stronger by using them, by tension across the muscles pulling on the bone, and by gravity. Astronauts who spend a year, as little as a year, 12 days in space or a year in space will lose bone. Being sick and lying in bed for two weeks will lose bone. Usually, if we're young and back on our feet right away, we can build our bones back up. You need to use bone to make them strong. You need to exert a force on the bone, but not too much force, of course.
Your Lifestyle May Be Weakening Your Skeleton
One-third of the global population aged 15 and older engages in insufficient physical activity. They don't put enough force on their bones. And Americans spend 55% of their waking time, 7.7 hours a day, engaged in sedentary behaviors. And you know them. It's your phone unless you're walking on your phone, which is a risk of falling, or you're watching TV, or using your computer, or playing video games. All those activities act to decrease your bone density. And picking up the remote does not count for the force on your bones.
What Builds—or Breaks—Your Peak Bone Strength
So what creates peak bone density? Well, it's genetics, sex and sex hormones, behavior, activity, drinking, and diseases. So, how to achieve and maintain bone density? Your peak bone density depends on your genetics, and you can't change that. It includes your race. People of Asian ancestry have less peak bone density than people of European ancestry. African ancestry leads to greater peak bone density. Also, sex and sex hormones. Men have more bone density than women. And men and women who have lost their sex hormones due to diseases or age have lower bone density. And peak bone density depends on behavior. Physical activity increases bone density. Drinking alcohol beyond moderate drinking and cigarette smoking, and a diet poor in nutrients, such as calcium and vitamin D, can lead to lower bone density.
Medical Conditions That Quietly Drain Your Bone Density
So diseases can lower bone density. Diseases that can cause people to lose their mobility, or diseases that can cause high cortisol levels, such as Cushing's disease, or which are treated by taking corticosteroids, like inflammation or arthritis, or other autoimmune diseases, can lower bone density. Thyroid diseases can lower bone density, and some cancers can also lower bone density.
People who have diseases where they don't absorb nutrients from their bowel can have lower bone density, and significant weight loss can lower bone density because the bones are not exposed to the same force. Remember: F equals MV. M equals mass. And people who lose a lot of weight often miss out on nutrients. A lot of weight loss can be a significant stress, and that can stop women's periods and lower their estrogen levels.
Amenorrhea, or the loss of periods in young women, can be associated with eating disorders and some athletics that value low body weight, like dancing and gymnastics, and competitive running. These women, despite having a lot of force on their bones, can have lower bone density.
How to Give Your Bones the Best Start—and a Strong Future
So the balance of exercise and good diet and good genes, and good luck can lead us to good peak bone density by our mid-30s. This gives us greater density to start with when we start, and we all start to lose bone when we are past midlife.
So if you are young and listening, limit your sodas. And soda drinks can be bad for your bones. Get off the chair or the couch and jump up and down or dance, clean your house, move a vacuum around and lift laundry, and hang up clothes. If you're raising teens, good luck with encouraging your teens to do all those things. Make sure you encourage a diet with adequate calcium. Milk products are the easiest, but leafy greens, like spinach and kale, and you know those ones, and sardines, good luck with that one, are all high in calcium.
Make sure your teen goes outside and gets some sunshine on their skin. Not too much. It only takes 10 minutes on bare arms for young people. If you're a grandmother, do stuff outside with your grandkids if you can. It'll be good for both of you. It's activity, it's vitamin D from your skin, and it's a positive attitude, which decreases stress.
This is part of a two-part series on osteoporosis, so check in and take care of that body part that lets you stand up and not be in a puddle. Thanks for listening to us on the "7 Domains of Women's гƵ."
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