Bone Health - Know if you are Vitamin D deficient

Bones get weaker as we age - particularly in women. This is the pattern: bone strength increases through childhood and the teen years; in our twenties and thirties bone strength high; then declines late thirties into the forties ; and declines even more around menopause.  

Are all bones affected by osteoporosis or just a few bones ?  This is the pattern: wrist; back in the chest area; top of the thigh; they all could get weaker. Weaker means that they might fracture or break.

So what might you do ? There are many drugs aimed at helping osteoporosis. 

Look at this list.

Exercise can definitely help and I'll get into details in the next post but trying to combat osteoporosis with exercise alone is probably not the best way to go.You need expert medical advice. 

However you should not forget some simple additional approaches: get enough sun; enough calcium; reduce your salt intake. Sunshine on our skins causes Vitamin D to be made in the skin. If you live in a northern climate and have darker skin then it is likely that your body does not get enough intensity of sunshine to make enough Vitamin D. It is thought that more than half of Americans are Vitamin D deficient. 

You can test yourself for your Vitamin D level by buying (a somewhat expensive) kit from Virginia Hopkins.

Getting your salt (sodium) intake down sharply is also a good idea because high salt intake negates the good impact of a high calcium intake.

If you want to consider exercise before I write a blog specifically on exercise and osteoporosis then get yourself this video from the National Osteoporosis Foundation.