Taming the Risk of Osteoporosis

Virtually everyone likes to take their health and wellness into their own hands; to be able to do something-or a variety of things--in order to feel healthy and strong. Recently I met a women who could probably serve as the poster child for healthy lifestyle choices. Carla never strays from following the food pyramid model for a healthy diet, focusing on health powerhouse foods like broccoli, salmon, and blueberries. She practices yoga and runs 3 miles every other day. When we met, she "confessed" to me that her guilty pleasure is eating a square of dark chocolate on the days she runs. (Are you wondering what I was wondering? Is this woman confessing that she eats a chocolate bar on the days she does more exercise than I do in a week!? No, dear reader, she meant one tiny square of chocolate-a fraction of a chocolate bar.) Carla even makes a commitment (and sticks to it!) to have balance in her life by keeping her workload manageable and setting aside high quality time with the people closest to her. See what I mean about the poster child?

The funny thing about this super-healthy woman is that she is perpetually nagged by a fear of dying. Her mother had died shortly after taking a bad fall and breaking a hip. Carla had it in her mind that if her mother had osteoporosis, she would, too, and was disturbed by the thought that there was nothing she could do, except take calcium and vitamin D supplements, and the medications her mother had taken to treat her osteoporosis. Given her mother's early death Carla was not heartened by her choices. Choices related only to medications and supplements. For this can-do woman so adept at taking her health and wellness into her own hands, relying on pills wasn't cutting it.

What she didn't know was that her love, the love we all have to some degree (admittedly, perhaps few of us reach Carla's level) of doing something to improve our own health is exactly what is likely to diminish, if not eliminate, her risk of osteoporosis. For Carla and the majority of us, taming the risk of osteoporosis is entirely possible.

There's reason enough for Carla's concern. Osteoporosis is considered one of our nation's greatest health threats. It is estimated that fully 55% of Americans over 50 years old are at risk of osteoporosis. The disease is characterized by the loss of bone density. The inner structure of the bone weakens so much that they become susceptible to fractures, especially in hip, spine, and wrist bones. One in two women will have an osteoporosis fracture in her life, and women's risk of hip fracture alone is the same as her combined risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and uterine cancer.

Carla's mother was, unfortunately, not unusual: one fifth of the people who fracture a hip due to osteoporosis die within a year from related complications. While significantly more women than men have osteoporosis (women comprise 80% of those with the disease), those men who do have an osteoporosis-related fracture, particularly hip fracture, are twice as likely as women to die within a year.

What Carla didn't know, and what should be very encouraging to all of us is that bone density loss can be prevented, stopped, and even turned around through moderate exercise. Bones may seem solid and their aging process one of weakening or diminishing, but bones are actually living, growing tissue until the day we die. Those of us with just a fraction of Carla's resolve can actually build new bone tissue by placing increasingly greater demands on our bones. That's how bones grow, by responding to the tug of muscles attached to them.

Researchers at Tufts University have been working for years to discover ways to build bone density by studying the impact of weight-training on the bones of men and women 40 and older. The findings from their studies have changed the ways we think about osteoporosis. What was once viewed as an inevitable part of aging is now considered a preventable disease among the vast majority of people.

The most well-known of these researchers is Miriam Nelson, author of the bestselling series of Strong Women and Strong Men books. Her research is showing that a simple weight training program in which participants lift hand and leg weights for an hour just twice a week is turning back the clock on bone density loss, and creating several unintended benefits as well.