Your Diet and Osteopenia and Osteoporosis
Osteopenia, or early stage osteoporosis, means poverty of bone.
Osteoporosis means porous bone, or bones with holes in it.
Osteoporosis is a disease which starts in middle age, and progressively worsens over time.
With osteopenia and osteoporosis, your bones get more brittle as you age, leaving you at risk for serious injury even from a simple thing like tripping, or stepping down the wrong way.
We think that bone is solid and unchanging, but that is not the case. Bone is a living tissue that breaks down and is built back up all the time. Think of it as a wall made with 100 bricks when you are healthy.
If you have osteopenia, your wall may fall down, and be built back up to the same size and dimensions, but with only 90 bricks.
For osteoporosis, you may have to build that same wall with only 70 or even 60 bricks. Therefore, it would not be as sturdy, right?
Osteoporosis can lead to bone breakage and especially hip fractures in older women. It can also lead to frailty, that thin, sick-like appearance to the limbs of older people.
Exercise, particularly weight bearing exercise such as light weights, can help combat fraility, but the best medicine is a good, healthy diet.
A bone density can tell you if you have osteopenia or osteoporosis, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
In the next section of this series, we will outline the major dietary recommendations to prevent osteopenia and osteoporosis
Continues in Diet and Disease Prevention Part 7
Prevent Osteopenia and osteoporosis
