Best Foods For Healthy Bones
Having healthy bones plays a vital role in your longevity and as you will see further down in the statistics, it is very likely that one of us will suffer in later life if we don’t protect our bones now.
The lifestyle choices we make in our younger years will determine the health of our bones as we get older.
By the age of 30, most people will have reached their peak bone mass and then will start to see a steady decline in bone density
Working out and staying physically fit is crucial to maintaining strong bones but so is diet.
In this article we will look at which foods you should be eating for your bone health and why.
Why do we need strong bones?
The stronger your bones, the less chance you have of developing osteoporosis which is a condition that cause bones to become weak and brittle.
There are 2 risk factors that are out of your control when it comes to the strength of your bones, and those are gender and age.
Women are at a greater risk of developing osteoporosis than men because they have less bone tissue and the older you get the weaker your bones get.
From Visually.
Globally there is someone fracturing a bone every 3 seconds because of osteoporosis.
In women over 45 years of age, osteoporosis accounts for more days spent in hospital than many other killer disease such as diabetes, heart attacks and breast cancer.
It’s a similar story for men in Sweden, who spend more days in hospital with fractured bones because of osteoporosis than those due to prostate cancer.
Thankfully, there are 2 factors that we can control in developing osteoporosis and those are how physically fit we are and how healthy we are.
What foods will protect from osteoporosis?
Dairy products such as eggs, milk, yogurt and cheese are essential for bone health because they are high in calcium.
Calcium is a mineral that is stored in our body’s at a young age to build strong bones.
When we reach late teens the body stops storing calcium and are calcium intake after that is purely to maintain what we have deposited.
If our calcium requirements are not met through diet or supplementation, the body pulls calcium from our bones making them weaker and susceptible to fractures.
Leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach and broccoli are also a good source of calcium along with the added benefit of vitamin K which may also reduce the risk of osteoporosis further.
Walnuts are rich in various minerals such as copper, magnesium and manganese which are important in the maintenance of storing bones.
Very low levels of copper is associated with osteoporosis due to lower bone mineral density.
Copper is also important in the maintenance of collagen and elastin which are vital for bone strength and the connective tissue around it.
Magnesium is responsible for regulating the parathyroid gland, which is the primary organ in charge of bone mineralisation.
Magnesium also aids the absorption of calcium into the bone and Manganese in combination with calcium and copper has been shown to prevent osteoporosis.
Pumpkin seeds are another great source of Magnesium and Manganese with half a cup containing 100% of you daily requirement along with high amounts of copper.
Salmon is one of the few foods that contains Vitamin D
Vitamin D is important because it works synergistically with calcium allowing the bones to absorb more calcium and making them stronger.
Due to the fact that so little foods contain vitamin D, it is very common to find cereals and orange juice fortified with vitamin D.
This study found that orange juice fortified with vitamin D will increase vitamin D intake which would help prevent osteoporosis.
Exposing your skin to the sun is also a great way for the body to create vitamin D especially if you struggle to consume enough through diet.
Should you take supplements for bone health?
Research suggests that 50 % of men over the age of 35 and 85% of women over the age of 20 consume less than the recommended daily allowance of calcium.
To compound the matter, poor diet choices such as sugar, alcohol, excess caffeine, soda (especially ones high in phosphorus) can deplete calcium further.
Because of this, a good calcium supplement like Bone-Up from Jarrow Formulas, could be a great addition to your diet, providing you with not only the finest source of calcium available but all the other vitamins and minerals like vitamin D, vitamin K, potassium, magnesium, boron, and trace minerals such as zinc, copper, and manganese which are needed for skeletal health.
It is not only a complete formula with the finest ingredients but Bone-Up has been shown in a double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial to produce statistically significant increases in bone health.
Whether it be through positive lifestyle choices, diet, supplementation or a combination of all three, the importance of having health bones is something that we should all be aware off because if we don’t do something about it now, we will more than likely be affected by it in our later years.
