Our skeletons are composed of hard tissue that provide us with a sound infrastructure allowing for upright posture, complex movements and amazing dexterity. While many people look upon their skeletons as little more than scaffolding — hard structures that hold us up and give shape to our bodies — many don’t realize that this is but one of the many ways our skeletons serve us.
For a fun analogy to help illustrate this point, consider this: our skeletons are not like a small store selling one kind of widget — they are more like a mini-mall offering us multiple goods and services. Your amazing skeleton offers:
“Parking” in the form of support for softer tissues and attachment points for skeletal muscle to assist in movement.
“Security” in the form of mechanical protection of internal organs.
A “supermarket” where the body can shop for “groceries” such as key minerals that play essential roles in cardiovascular function and overall health. This includes calcium (97.9% of which is in the skeleton), magnesium (50%), sodium (35%), and phosphorus (85%), as well as “specialty foods” — alkalizing compounds like citrate and carbonate, which attach to the minerals in bone and provide for the essential maintenance of minute-to-minute blood pH balance.
A “hardware store” in the form of bone marrow that offers blood cells (for moving nutrients and oxygen), platelets (for fixing leaks and patching holes), and “batteries” (reserve energy in the form of fatty acids).
A “locker room” for toxic metals, keeping these hazardous substances out of circulation.
And there’s even a “courier service” in the form of hormones that send messages to the tissues about glucose control, energy metabolism, body mineral balance, and body fat (Martin 2017).
Our skeletons are a wonder, and with so much to offer, it’s no surprise most of us are satisfied customers!
Are the medications you’re taking for heartburn and acid reflux increasing your fracture risk?
Proton pump inhibitor antacids (PPIs) like omeprazole (Prilosec), lansoprazole (Prevacid), esomeprazole (Nexium) and others can seriously increase your risk of fracture 30 to 50% — and even up to 200% according to one study. In fact, the risk is so great the FDA issued a warning about it.
What’s more, this class of medications is among the most overprescribed drugs (as well as being available over the counter), and it is estimated that up to 70% of people taking them don’t really need them.
What’s the problem with proton pump inhibitor antacids?
One likely reason for the problems with the PPIs is that inhibition of stomach acid means less nutrient absorption and therefore reduced bone strength. The effects of PPIs on nutrient absorption is well-documented and affects calcium, iron, magnesium, B12, and other key bone nutrients.
Nutrient depletion in turn leads to lower trabecular bone density and susceptibility to low-impact fracture.
Recent research shows other serious damaging effects
50% increase in risk of chronic kidney disease
58% increase in risk of heart attack
44% increased risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s in people age 75 and older
A significant increase in serious gastrointestinal infections such as difficile.
Symptom suppression often leads to dysregulation of the entire body; that’s why the Better Bones, Better Body approach takes the perspective that identifying and correcting the root cause of a symptom is a more life-supporting approach.
PS: In the attached video, I interview my colleague, nutritionist Martie Whittekin, CCN, author of Natural Alternatives to Nexium, Maalox, Tagamet, Prilosec, and Other Acid Blockers. While this is a serious topic, the interview is fun and informative and well worth watching.
Whittekin M. Natural Alternatives to Nexium, Maalox, Tagamet, Prilosec and other Acid Blockers. Square One Publishers, Garden City Park, New York, 2012.
Bet you feel healthier after a good night’s sleep — well, so do your bones. Here’s what the scientists have found in their latest research about the connection between sleep and your bones:
Reduced sleep duration was associated with lower bone density in middle aged and older women in one Chinese study.
Obstructive sleep apnea, with its loss of sleep and oxygen deprivation, weakens bone. A recent Taiwanese study found the incidence of osteoporosis to be 2.7 times higher among those with sleep apnea.
Insomnia was associated with a 52% increased risk of osteoporosis in a recent Norwegian study.
In animal models lack of sleep was found to halt new bone formation, cause cell damage, and produce abnormal bone marrow, all likely to be associated with poor bone repair.
These studies highlight that sleep is essential to give us a time and environment for crucial bone repair and regeneration. Inadequate sleep is a pro-inflammatory stressor that results in “repair deficit” — a deficit that goes bone deep.
How much sleep is enough?
While the amount of sleep needed varies by individual, the scientific evidence suggests 7 hours of sleep per night is needed to help reduce physiological and neurobehavioral deficits. Personally I feel best with 8 hours of sleep in the dark winter months, but do just fine with a bit less in the sunny summer.
Better Bones tips for restorative sleep
Take care with caffeine. Try a few days without this stimulant and note any sleep improvement.
Try a non-electronic quieting down period in the evening. Instead of plugging in, try a hot bath, short meditation or the Yoga Nidra sleep audio.
Melatonin regulates nocturnal circadian rhythms. Using 3 mg before bed helps many women sleep better and also builds bone. There is good data that melatonin enhances bone formation, reduces bone breakdown, and has cancer-protective properties to boot.
Finally, sharing my own story of sleep success. I am no stranger to sleep disruptions, and I suspect it’s due to mental over-activity and a “worry-wart” tendency (as my mother would say). Recently I have found the cortisol-controlling adrenal support formula known as Serinisol from Women’s Health Network to be a godsend. Using the natural product I feel more calm and at ease during the day and sleep happily, solidly through the night. If you give it a try, let me know how it works for you.
Got a minute? Every week I receive dozens of questions from women like you with concerns about their bone health. In my new series, “1 Minute with Dr. Brown,” I will try to answer your most pressing questions. If you have a question, send it in to us at center@betterbones.com
Question: What is the single most important thing I can do to take care of my bone health?
I’ve written before that adequate rest and sleep have been part of our innate healing process for hundreds of thousands of years.
Melatonin, a naturally-occurring hormone that helps you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm, is essential to this process.
Melatonin makes us less alert and more ready for sleep, which benefits bone by reducing the bone-depleting cortisol and pro-inflammatory responses in our body.
You may not realize that as we get older — after the age of 40 — our bodies naturally make less melatonin. For the best sleep, melatonin should increase during the evening before bedtime, remain high during the night and then drop when morning comes. When that doesn’t happen, you may not feel sleepy or struggle to fall asleep when you do go to bed. Supplementing with melatonin can help improve your ability to sleep by acting on the brain receptors that regulate the body’s circadian clock.
Melatonin and age-related bone loss
Given everything we know about the benefits of melatonin, researchers decided to take a look at how using a melatonin supplement might affect the strength of aging bones. Using animal models — whose age was about 60 in human years — the researchers found a significant increase in bone volume, flexibility and density among those receiving melatonin supplements. Also, preliminary human studies suggest that melatonin may enhance osteoblast differentiation and may restore imbalances in bone remodeling. Of course, further studies need to be done, but I am always excited when studies of a natural therapy look promising!
3 tips for getting to sleep
For help with falling asleep, I like to take about a half hour to relax before bedtime. Your individual relaxing time can be anywhere from as little as 15 minutes to up to an hour, so I suggest you experiment to find out the amount of time that works best for you. I also find these tips helpful:
Set a nightly time limit for technology use. At times, I certainly am guilty of staying plugged in right up until I close my eyes. But when I avoid this overactivity, I notice the difference almost immediately.
Develop a focused, positive intention to sleep through the night, rather than worrying that you won’t be able to fall asleep. Some women find meditating before bed or deep breathing or listening to a Nidra yoga tape is calming and speeds the transition to sleep.
Boost your body’s natural hormones with a Melatonin supplement. If it helps your sleep, I suspect it is also helping your bones!
As a healthcare practitioner, I’m always talking with women about the importance of their health. But I realize that many women are short on time. That’s why one of the things I emphasize is that with a natural, life-supporting bone-building program, you can easily create multiple benefits for your entire body. Here are just a few examples.
As you build your bones, you can also….
1) Control your weight and belly fat Hormonal signals sent between bones and other organs regulate sugar metabolism and prevent diabetes, reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome, and limit “belly fat.” My natural Better Bones program will enhance the production of osteocalcin, which is the hormone-like molecule that actually signals the body to reduce unwanted fat.
2) Build muscle If we’re building bone, we’re building muscle, and vice versa. Exercise studies show that women in early post-menopause can not only maintain, but gain an average of 1.5% in bone mineral density in as little as nine months with rigorous strength-training regimes. This is compared to the 2% of lost bone that might otherwise occur. Wearing a weighted vest is a time saving way to build both muscle and bone.
3) Promote healthy teeth and gums There are direct links between poor oral health and poor overall health as well; periodontal disease is linked not only to osteoporosis, but also to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and respiratory illnesses such as COPD or pneumonia. Receding gums are often an early sign of body-wide bone loss. Our teeth can be thought of as the “strongest bone.” Over and over again I see the teeth, gums and the jaw bone benefit from the Better Bones Program.
4) Get optimal blood pressure Many nutrients key to bone health, including the calcium, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin D, are key to regulating healthy blood pressure. We consider potassium to be especially powerful for both heart and bones, as it helps maintain healthy blood pressure, electrolyte balance, calcium levels, and bone-crucial acid-base balance.
5) Give yourself a healthy heart In a natural Better Bones program, everything you do for bone will also help your heart. For example, vitamin K — particularly K2 as MK-7 — improves arterial flexibility and helps reduce the risk of arterial calcification.
Plus…new connections for skin and nails Finally, bone is high in protein collagen, and new research connects the health of our bone to that of our skin and nails, which are also collagen-abundant tissues. Better Bones plus less wrinkles, and stronger nails — sounds good to me.
Every day women are worried because they’ve been told that a DEXA test shows their bone density is that of an 80-year-old, or that they “must” take bone drugs.
But what worries me is that most of these women have NOT been told whether or not their bone loss is ongoing or if it occurred in the past. Knowing if your bone loss is still taking place is critical when it comes to your risk of excessive bone loss, osteoporosis and fracture.
The NTx test measures current bone loss
I recommend anyone worried about bone loss get an NTx (N-telopeptide) test. Unlike bone density tests which only provide a static snapshot of your bones, an NTx test tells you if your bones are currently breaking down. It does this by measuring molecules from bone excreted in the urine.
Get a video download about the NTx
You can get a video download that features my explanation of the NTx test, how to get one and how to understand the results. This 9 ½-minute video download also includes a transcript for those who prefer the read the information. You can also help educate your physician about the use of the NTx test and why you would like her/him to order this test for you. Get the video now.
Is being overweight protective for bone health? Does being underweight jeopardize bone? What happens to bone when you lose weight?
While these might seem like simple questions, the weight-bone link is far from straight-forward. Hundreds of papers have been written on the topic, with contradictory findings. Nonetheless I did promise to address this weighty issue, so here’s my synthesis of what we know.
Being significantly underweight increases the risk for fracture. Numerous studies suggest that being thin is associated with an increased risk of hip fracture compared to people of normal weight. Thin women with low bone density and little muscle mass are especially at risk.
Being slightly overweight may have a small protective effect on hip fractures. Weight-bearing hip fractures may be a bit less in slightly overweight women as compared to women of normal weight However, being even slightly overweight seems to be associated with a somewhat greater risk for fractures of the upper arm.
Being significantly overweight doesn’t protect against fractures. Even though weight-bearing bones may become stronger to carry extra weight, this doesn’t appear to ward off fractures. Abdominal fat likely produces inflammatory compounds detrimental to bone. Being overweight is often associated with metabolic diseases like diabetes which increase fracture risk.
Lean body mass is important. Whatever your weight, the amount of muscle mass or lean body mass is very important. Lean body mass protects against fracture— which is why a thin person with good muscle mass will be at a lower risk than a heavy person with a lower percentage of muscle mass. Muscle mass is associated with bone mineral density, and a higher bone density associated with lower fracture risk.
Weight loss is associated with bone loss. Simply said, when you lose weight you lose bone. This is especially true as we grow older, as bone loss from weight loss in post menopause isn’t regained easily. In fact, losing weight as we age after menopause is considered a risk factor for fracture.
Weight cycling increases fracture risk. Weight cycling — or the losing and then gaining back of weight— is associated with increased rates of both spinal and hip fractures fracture. A stable weight, if bit above normal, is more favorable to bone.
If you’d like, in a subsequent blog I can discuss what this all might mean for you. For now let me suggest that for women of normal or low weight, gaining a few pounds as we age is not a bad thing at all. Read more about your possible bone health risk factors here.
In a perfect world, the bones can manage wear and tear quite efficiently but when they are bombarded daily by large concentrations of toxins, chemicals, or even prescription drugs, it becomes impossible to maintain homeostasis. The bones literally can’t keep up with the demand placed on them and the orderly ebb and flow between bone breakdown and rebuilding goes haywire.
Over the course of studying bones, their structure, and function, I’ve learned that, if we would just listen, our bones will tell us how to keep them healthy. When we understand and respect the complex and dynamic nature of osteoporosis, we are given the tools to naturally improve the condition of our bones. We can put the magical nature of our bones to work for us by using methods which are logical and easy to comprehend. Harnessing this innate intuition for healing and protection is one of the “secrets” of healthy bones and it is within our grasp to do.
A note about prescription drugs for osteoporosis:
Today, medications known as bisphosphonates are commonly prescribed for women who are at risk for or diagnosed with osteoporosis. Bone mineral density may increase after taking these drugs, but this change alone is not enough to recover bone health or structural integrity. In addition, new evidence suggests that long-term use of bisphosphonates may harm the bone, with some women even reporting strange fractures. I don’t recommend these drugs and instead advocate the safer, more effective approach of using nutrition and environmental management to return your bones to a healthy state.
The weight of our world
Just what sorts of things could jeopardize the health of our bones to such a great extent that osteoporosis has become so common in American women? In a word: lifestyle. Inadequate nutrition, dieting, smoking, hormonal imbalance, lack of exercise, and a long list of other factors, have a negative impact on the state of our bones. Ideally, there is a balance between the processes of bone depletion and bone regeneration. This equilibrium is maintained through proper nutrition and other factors, but it is quickly reordered when the bones do not get what they need. Bones require certain elements to stay healthy: the right nutrients in steady supply, appropriate exercise, protection from toxins and poisons, etc., and when these elements are delivered regularly, the bones respond by growing stronger and more resilient.
While our bones might be able to tolerate the effects of a few damaging practices, the hazard grows exponentially in relation to the total number of the “burdens” we might be carrying. 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 typical American lifestyle. Adding to or taking away just one or two burdens can have a significant effect on your bone health, one way or the other. The journey towards healthier bones starts by taking one step away from your own personal tipping point.
If you are living a hectic lifestyle, you may feel as if you have no control over anything that happens to you or your body during your day. But the fact is, only 20 percent of our total burden is beyond our reach — things like gender, genetic makeup, and age. In actuality, 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.
The American way of life often exposes us to a wide spectrum of environmental toxins which accelerate the process of bone loss, usually without us even knowing. The body has several means for naturally ridding itself of poisons, but it can only handle so many “emergency calls.” Removing or neutralizing the effects of toxins is possible using a variety of natural methods for detoxification.
Suggestions include:
Drinking purified or filtered water, or teas, to help dilute toxins and move them out of the body
Eating natural, organic foods which are nutrient-rich and free of antibiotics and hormones
Washing fruits and vegetables to remove pesticides and contaminants
Inflammation and stress
Reducing the burden that inflammation places on our bodies is absolutely critical to maintaining optimal bone health. An overactive inflammation response can push the bone breakdown mechanism into overdrive and cause actual bone loss. If you have certain chronic health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, or fibromyalgia, these are signposts that inflammation could be a particular problem for your individual bone health.
De-stressing our lives and learning to relax is as important to our bones as it is to overall wellness. Stress, negative emotions, and depression can all figure prominently in the deterioration of bone health. If we are in stressful states for long periods, it can end up harming the bones through the effects that “stress chemicals” such as cortisol and adrenaline have on the metabolism. So take this as another reminder to focus on finding ways to remove some of the emotional stressors from your life and invite more relaxation in.
It’s never too late to turn your attention to improving bone health. Even long-term patterns and habits can be changed or moderated so you can reduce the weight of your personal burdens and restore the internal balance required for good bone health.
A new way to live each day
Recovering bone health starts with a new understanding of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis in itself is not something that has gone wrong. Instead, osteoporosis is a natural process of bone breakdown and regeneration that is intended to be used as a short-term measure. For many women, though, it has become an enduring pattern that damages the bones and has an unhealthy impact on general wellness. For so long, American women have been taught to ignore what their bodies tell them about how to live well and stay healthy. Finding an appreciation for the natural processes which allow us to function, and listening to the messages our bodies send, helps us get in touch with the instinctive intelligence we all have within.
So often, the treatment methods women encounter in traditional medicine, especially those for osteoporosis, actually work against the body’s normal biology and upset the balance even more. Knowing — and accepting — how your particular lifestyle is affecting your bone health makes it even easier to adopt a healthier new lifestyle which harmonizes with the natural way your body works. The Women’s Health Network Better Bones Package is a comprehensive plan for attaining bone health which helps guide you away from the heavy burdens of a harmful lifestyle, and offers you a wholesome new blueprint to follow. When you incorporate the natural components of our Program into your daily life, you can prevent, halt, or even reverse, the effects of osteoporosis.
It’s not too late — so don’t wait
The sneaky thing about osteoporosis is that you won’t notice any symptoms and probably won’t have any outward indication that your bone health is at risk. That’s why it’s important to take action now so your bones can stay healthy and strong for life. And because of the magical healing nature of our bones, it genuinely doesn’t matter how old you are, you just need to make the commitment. When you make that pledge, it sends a signal to your body to prepare for the positive changes you are about to embrace. so your new behaviors become part of a fresh, healthy lifestyle.
While it is not as easy to build bone during the teen years as during early adolescence, this stage still offers substantial opportunity. Nearly a quarter of all bone is formed during the years of the adolescent growth spurt, and half of the bone mass you will build during your life is laid down from puberty through the teen years. This is the time for exercise and good nutrition.
A wholesome diet, strenuous and regular exercise, and the avoidance of toxins are all especially important. Unfortunately, at this time more than ever, young people’s diets tend to deteriorate; exercise, especially among girls, drops; and dieting increases, along with anorexia, menstrual irregularities, and tobacco and recreational drug use.
While teens would benefit from supernutrition, minimal nutrition is more the standard. Teenage girls consume on average only 68% of the RDA for calcium, making it unlikely that many will reach their full genetic potential for bone mass development. While teenage boys consume more calcium, many still underconsume a variety of essential bone-building nutrients. For example, 30% of all adolescents consume less than two-thirds the RDA for magnesium. Teenage girls consume inadequate amounts of manganese, and average male intake is rather marginal.
To reverse this trend, teens can be encouraged to:
Consume at least the RDA of all essential nutrients. Use supplements as necessary to achieve this goal.
Strive to consume two cups of vegetables for lunch and dinner, and four servings of fruit a day.
Avoid smoking, recreational drugs, and excessive dieting.
Seek and address the underlying causes of conditions requiring steroid medications or chronic antibiotic use.
