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Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Top bone health blog topics you requested for 2016

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A big thanks to each one of you in the Better Bones Blog community who took the time to complete our first ever survey!

To my great pleasure, more than a thousand of you sent us your thoughts and suggestions about what you find useful and how to best move forward with the Better Bones blog. Here are some of the major points that jumped out at me that will help guide my blog writing this year:

Your top 5 areas of interest

I will definitely be writing more blogs about new bone health research — which was a favorite topic for an amazing 72% of readers.

1. New bone health research
2. Exercise
3. Successful aging
4. Special bone health concerns of thin women
5. Alkaline diet

If you would like to get even more frequent updates on research, you can always like the Better Bones Facebook page where I post daily.

You’ve got great ideas

I read with great interest all the 125 topic comments and suggestions for additional topics. Here are just a few of your ideas that caught my eye:

• Menopause and bone
• Bone concerns for women over 75
• Osteoporosis in men
• Loss of cartilage
• What negatively affects bone health
• Anxiety
• Inflammation and the effect on bones
• Functional medicine
• Essential nutrients
• Absorbability of various forms of calcium, magnesium, other minerals
• Why would bone breakdown be elevated?

You like recipes too!

As so many of you said you liked recipes, here’s a fun St. Patrick’s Day cabbage recipe to accompany corned beef. While it is impossible to make corned beef alkaline, that’s OK—we need 60 grams of protein a day for strong bones. Cabbage, the typical St. Patty’s Day corned-beef companion, however, is highly alkalizing and here is a tasty variation. And for the Irish green, why not a serving of lightly steamed baby kale sprinkled with apple cider vinegar!

St. Patrick’s Day cabbage recipe

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ head green cabbage, cut into 4 wedges
• 1 pinch garlic powder, or to taste
• 1 pinch red pepper flakes, or to taste
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 2 lemons, halved

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450°F (230°C).
2. Brush both sides of each cabbage wedge with olive oil. Sprinkle garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper over each wedge. Arrange wedges on a baking sheet.
3. Roast in the preheated oven for 15 minutes; flip cabbage and continue roasting until browned and charred in some areas, about 15 minutes more. Squeeze lemon over each wedge.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2016 Allrecipes.com
Printed From Allrecipes.com 2/19/2016

What stood out to me about the survey results?

Finally, you are an impressive group when it comes to your commitment to finding natural solutions to bone health issues — no matter what! For example, many of you asked for information about “how to scientifically and knowledgeably argue back to doctors who push big pharma drugs and use scare tactics to do so” or “Find a way to educate physicians. When there is a bone problem for aging women they prescribe Fosamax®.”

Empowering women like you to make the best choices for their own bone health is one of my life-long goals. Based on my experience, creating bone health without drugs is possible and I will continue to provide you with the information you need to do so. Thank you again for everything you do to help me make that possible.

All the best,
Susan

 

Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Researchers weigh in: Thin women more likely to experience rapid bone loss in menopause transition

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I have shared with you my experiences how thin and worried women often have lower bone mass and tend to lose more bone during the menopausal transition.

But there is still much we can learn about this connection. In fact, I have become so interested in this phenomenon that I recently began my own “Thin Women and Bone Loss” research project.

And researchers around the world are interested in this topic too.

Recently, one Chinese study focusing on bone loss during premenopause, perimenopause, and post-menopause had the novel aspect of looking at how weight and body mass index predicted the likelihood of rapid bone loss during the menopausal transition. In the study, women weighing less than 110 lbs. had 5.5 times the risk of rapid bone loss than women who weighed more than 110 lbs. Among all risk factors,only body weight and body mass index were significantly different between those with rapid bone loss and those with normal bone loss. Thin Chinese women clearly lost more bone during the menopause transition.

These findings were part of a 2010 study following 161 Chinese women, ages 45-55, for five years. During that time, most moved from premenopause into perimenopause and post-menopause. Researchers also found that among these women the most rapid rate of bone loss occurred during the perimenopausal stage of the menopausal transition. This tendency towards rapid bone loss during perimenopause has also been documented among Caucasians by endocrinologist Dr. Jerilynn Prior and others.

Here at the Center for Better Bones we have found both aspects of the study to be true for Caucasians, but our standard for “thin” is more like being less than 120 lbs. We have found thin women who worry excessively seem to undergo more bone loss than those who do not have such a strong tendency to worry.

With the body of research growing about the connection between weight and bones, I want to encourage women — from premenopause and beyond — to remember they can make a measurable difference in their bone health with a comprehensive approach that includes the proper diet, exercise, and supplements.

I look forward to updating you on my research project!

 

Reference:

Cora, H et al. 2010. Body weight but not serum C-telopeptide predicts rate of bone loss during the menopausal transition. ASBMR poster presentation M00339, Toronto.

 

Better Bones Blog
Dr. Susan E. Brown

Bone Research in the Brazilian Amazon!

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ColombiaAs many of you know, I am an anthropologist as well as a nutritionist, and I have worked in several Central and South American countries. In fact, some of my most memorable field work was among the Bari (Motilone) Indians of Colombia pictured below. At the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research meeting of bone researchers in March of this year, I had the opportunity to meet a wonderful Brazilian endocrinologist, Dr. Marise Lazaretti Castro. She was at the meeting presenting her research findings on vitamin D deficiency in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Lazaretti and I took an immediate liking to one another, and right away, we began musing about what might be the “natural” human vitamin D level. We soon realized the perfect place to find out would be in the Brazilian Amazon.

As it turns out, Dr. Lazaretti might well have contacts who could facilitate access to such an indigenous population, so that we could hopefully be able to carry out this project one day. If so, I would like to look at a few more variables in addition to vitamin D. For example, I would like to assess the bone breakdown rates at different life stages and compare them with our rates of bone loss. I would also like to look at menopausal symptoms in such an indigenous group (such symptoms are often absent entirely), as well as changes in muscle strength and bone mineral density over time. What great fun even thinking about this. Here’s crossing my fingers it can become a reality! We only have so much time for this sort of research before all the indigenous people of the few remote, unaltered regions of the world become modernized and homogenized.