About Osteoporosis

Mick Hince asked:


In this article I would like to cover the subject of Osteoporosis symptoms, and what to look out for and at what age.

With most people you’re never too young to think about what causes Osteoporosis as it can affect young people as well as the old. In most cases it tends to affect women more than men as this is down to the hormonal change during the menopause.

But on saying that the Osteoporosis symptoms can occur at any age especially if the person’s diet is not as it should be. An example of this and hopefully your not in this category is that of anorexics who tend to have very little meat on their bones, and have not had the right intake of vitamins and normal supplements.

Osteoporosis symptoms are usually very hard to detect and in most cases the first you will know about whether you have Osteoporosis or not is when you end up in hospital due to a broken or fractured bone.

Another group of people who are at risk are those who exercise to the point they are thin or have very little body fat. Many a marathon runner has suffered with brittle bones due to their way of life.

Having Osteoporosis symptoms means that your bones will become very brittle and that without to much effort your bones will break or fracture. A simple fall or a knock can break things like your leg bones, hip bones, and wrist bones.

There are many ways that you can combat Osteoporosis and most of them are with taking a proper diet. If you’re a woman of menopausal age try taking the extra vitamins to replace those lost due to your time of life. If you talk this over with your Doctor I’m sure he will suggest the right type of supplements you need.

Summing up can be simplified, and affective Osteoporosis treatment can be made by first taking care of your diet and make sure that it is mainly on the alkaline side rather than the acidic. Many articles and books are available on this subject and it’s never too late in life to make that effective change to keep away the problems concerned with Osteoporosis.

Mike

axon20xx asked:


I am exploring the idea that long term stress and associated raised cortisol levels can lead to early development of osteoporosis. Anyone have a comment on this or know of related medical research?

Jamie

Michael Porteous asked:


The fear that every day you may break a bone or be heading towards a quality of life hindered by a stoop or hip problems can be terrifying; this is what Osteoporosis can do to you! Everyone would like to know what Osteoporosis symptoms are so at the first signs of Osteoporosis they can seek medical advice. The only problem is there are NO clear symptoms of Osteoporosis! Pains in the hip and spine may sometimes trigger people to seek medical advice but there are many conditions and ways you can hurt those parts of your body. So what can you do to find out if you have or might get Osteoporosis?

First we need to look at what Osteoporosis is and what causes it.

Osteoporosis is a condition where the bones of the body start to lose density and become more frail and prone to breaking. It can also cause bone to collapse upon itself creating a “dowagers hump” when the spine and hip compact together.

How do our bones become so frail though? This is because bone is a living tissue that is constantly being regrown using two major cells in bone forming; osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Simply put osteoclasts are cells that move through the bone looking for old parts that need renewal and destroy that old bone leaving a gap. Osteoblasts are cells that move through the bone looking for those empty spaces and fill them with new bone. In this way the bone is renewed all the time.

Osteoporosis is the condition when there are not enough osteoblasts to fill all of the gaps left by the osteoclasts leaving the bone peppered with many, many small gaps that lower bone density and cause the fragility of your bones.

So we can ask what are the symptoms of losing osteoblasts?

Unfortunately this is not something we can see or measure easily by ourselves; instead we must look at WHY we would lose so many osteoblasts and track down the root causes of Osteoporosis.

The primary cause of this poor bone renewal is in our blood. If the blood in our body is too acidic it can strip away calcium from the bone to restore a healthy blood balance, however this calcium is not replaced quickly enough to the bones and the osteoblasts cannot keep up. This acidic blood is mainly caused by diets high in meat, processed food and oddly enough dairy products. While dairy products put calcium into your body they also acidize the blood making those gains worthless combined with other dietary deficiencies and chemical intake like smoking, excessive alcohol and poor exersize (especially lack of weight training).

So what does all this mean? What Osteoporosis symptoms are there? Well, if you follow the causes of the condition we see diet is the main factor. While we cannot sense nor feel the bone fragility we can inspect our diet, and lifestyle if it is too full of foods that will make your blood more acidic and is lacking in good weight based exercise there is a very good chance your body will start stripping away your precious bones! The only real way to test for signs of osteoporosis and check your bone density is by seeing a doctor and asking for a specialized test called a ‘bone mineral density’ (BMD) test.

Irene