Nutrition & bone health
Essential nutrients for building better bones
by Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD
We’ve all seen those ads in magazines where celebrities (often athletes) with
painted-on milk moustaches promote milk’s value for bone health — a
terrific marketing tactic, but sadly lacking when explaining how proper nutrition
and proper bone health go hand in hand. What those ads don’t say
— and what many people just don’t realize — is that healthy bones
are an impossible dream without a balanced intake of vitamins, minerals, proteins,
fatty acids, and other important nutrients. Obtaining that intake requires a great
deal more than just milk! Particularly since, despite America’s wealth as
a nation, most of us do not consume food that contains adequate amounts of many
essential nutrients. Hard to believe? In a 1981 USDA survey that studied the three-day
food intake of 21,500 people, not a single person surveyed consumed 100%
of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of all 10 essential nutrients studied.
Substantial numbers of people consumed less than 70% of the RDA for several nutrients
— and that was before fast food restaurants became ubiquitous!
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Role of Supplements in Building Healthy Bones
Dr. Brown explains that proper nutritional supplementation is difficult through
natural diet.
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The average American diet is not only nutritionally inadequate, it is also imbalanced.
On any given day, 50% of us eat no fruit, and 25% of us eat no vegetables. At the
same time, Americans consume approximately 20% of their calories from refined sugars
and sweeteners, 30% from refined grains, and often, 40% as fat. Additionally, many
people consume 10% of calories from alcohol. What this all boils down to is frightening.
Our bodies are depending on a small percentage of our caloric intake to provide
us with all the essential nutrients we need to build and maintain strong and healthy
bones. Our country’s standard diet of fast food, fatty food, and food that
is very acidifying is literally robbing our bones of the nutrients they need to
remain strong and healthy.
This constant imbalance of nutrient deficiency and excess can present significant
problems for maintaining bone health. The chemistry of the human body operates best
in an alkaline state, with a pH of about 7.4. The body’s pH level is so critical,
it has many checks and balances to make sure it stays in line. If a diet is too
high in acid-forming foods, the body reacts by drawing alkalinizing mineral compounds
from bones to buffer this acidity and alkalize the body. While our bones do not
suffer from an occasional withdrawal of their alkalizing mineral reserves, excessive
and prolonged acidity can drain bone of alkali mineral reserves and lead to bone
thinning.
Eating for better bones
When it comes to bone health, there’s a single goal: to maximize the intake
of nutrient-dense, bone-building whole foods and minimize the intake of substances
that make the body more acid. Sound simple? Maybe, but in today’s fast-paced
society, following this “simple” recipe is difficult at best, and it
was likely much easier for our ancestors than it is for us. Living off the land
and sea provided our ancestors with a variety of nutrient-rich, whole foods that
could be harvested directly and dried, steamed, or preserved in other ways for use
in winter. Even more recent generations of our ancestors — our grandparents
— could not have located, much less purchased and consumed, much of the unwholesome
foods that line today’s supermarket shelves. Of the 25,000 products typically
available in an American supermarket, only a fraction of them are actually nutritious,
whole foods. Many of the offerings are not only highly processed, but also largely
synthetic. So for us, the challenge is to dodge all the clever marketing strategies
designed to attract us to packages and find the good foods hidden among the junk.
If bone health is your goal, here’s a simple way to start: change what you
put on your plate at mealtimes. First, eat meals composed largely of fresh fruits
and vegetables, organically grown whenever possible, that have undergone very little
processing before they come to your plate. It’s okay if you include some processed
foods, but try to make your diet mostly fresh, whole foods. Second, make
sure you are choosing foods that promote your body’s acid/alkaline balance
— which is easy if you follow the first suggestion, as most of the alkalizing
foods you can obtain are fresh fruits and vegetables! Third, when you shop in a
grocery store, stick to the outer aisles — the produce section and
the areas where fresh meats and fish are sold. The highly processed foods you want
to avoid are in the center aisles, so skip those. And finally, take a high-quality
multivitamin that provides all of the nutrients you need as “insurance,”
especially if you find yourself unable to always eat healthy foods.
You can find many more suggestions for improving your bone health using nutrition
and diet in the articles listed below:
Our most popular resources on nutrition & bone health
-
The calcium myth
Nutrition for healthy bones requires much more than just calcium. BetterBones.com
explains the importance of 20 key nutrients for bone health.
-
20 essential
bone-building nutrients — an overview
For many years, calcium was viewed as the all-important nutrient for bone health.
Every day we are learning more about the many other minerals, vitamins, and macronutrients
that are crucial for healthy bones. Join us as we pick our top 20 bone-building
nutrients, touch on how they work in the body, and review how much you really need
to keep your bones strong across a lifetime.
-
Ten steps to
better digestion
Key steps on strengthening digestion for stronger bones. Ten steps to better nutrition
and bone health from Better Bones.
- Protein and bone health: a paradox unraveled
- Potassium, the hidden bone guardian
Nutrition for healthy bones requires much more than just calcium. BetterBones.com
explains the importance of 20 key nutrients for bone health.
- Vitamin K: the overlooked bone builder and
heart protector
Susan Brown, PhD, the osteoporosis nutritionist, offers information on vitamin K
and natural ways to build bone strength, reduce fracture risk, and prevent osteoporosis.
Nutrition consultations, supplements, osteoporosis education, books, video, pH kit
available on this site.
- Nutrition charts
Get a summary of foods affecting nutrients in our body as well as our bone health.
Nutritionist Dr. Susan E. Brown PhD explains.
The Personal Program for Better Bones: the approach I recommend for naturally strong bones.
At the Center for Better Bones we promote an all-natural approach to bone regeneration
and repair that includes nutrition, diet, exercise, lifestyle guidance, and support.
The Personal Program for Better Bones is a convenient,
at-home version of this approach that was developed with Women to Women, one of America's premiere on-line women's
health websites. Working together, we've developed the most comprehensive approach
to bones health available today, and based on the 25 years of Dr. Brown's leading-edge
research in the field.
Questions about the Personal Program for Better Bones? Call toll-free at
1-877-200-1269.
Original Publication Date: 01/02/2009
Last Modified:
07/10/2012
Principal Author: Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD