When it comes to combating conditions like osteoporosis and osteopenia, what can we naturally do to strengthen the bones, reduce bone loss, and ultimately prevent it?
As we get older, from a woman’s perspective, going through menopause, it’s a trying time and it leads to a lot of falls, and injuries.
3 Things We Can Do That Will Naturally Strengthen Our Bones
- Strengthen your bones safely without the dangers of high dose of calcium and artery calcification
- Long-term effects of regular high-dose calcium supplements
- Support optimal bone health and combat things like osteopenia & osteoporosis
7 Things You Can Do To Improve Bone Health & Density
There are seven keys that we really want to focus on when it comes to what you can be doing for your bone health. What do we need to be looking at?
1. Avoid Sugar
Sugar is the main focus here when it comes to bone health. Now salt is usually the culprit and is usually the one to blame, but it’s actually sugar that is increasing inflammation.
Sugar creates sensitivity to insulin. It’s increasing the amount of acid inside your kidneys and reduces calcium intake altogether. It not only does not contain nutrition, but it’s actually blocking nutrients and key minerals from being absorbed into your body.
It’s creating an increased excretion of the calcium that you do eat out of your body. Sugar becomes a massive problem when it comes to the absorption of calcium and the blocking of it.
If you want to have better bone health, you’re going to want to focus on lowering the number of sugars and carbohydrates that you take in.
Salt, on the other hand, can be taken in a negative manner if it’s processed, but we want to really focus on sea salts. Sea salts are going to be very bone-friendly, providing the bodies with minerals. Most people are lacking proper minerals and lacking proper sea salt in their bodies and get too much-processed salt.
It’s this combo when we clean up our eating and go away from processed foods, we not only lower the sugar, but we will also start to clean up the salt. The foods we’re eating for bone health must be focused on lowering the sugar content.
There are some great links and resources that we have, right here to be able to understand a food list that simply breaks down. There’s one in my book, there are a lot of resources on how we start to live out a lifestyle that eats that way.
2. Balance Your pH Levels
Acidity in the body is going to lower the amount of calcium in the bones. To prevent the accumulation of acid in the body and increasing degrees of the acid that’s produced the body has multiple systems to buffer this.
The processed foods we eat every day contain a lot of acids. One of the ways the body lowers that acidity is through the bone because it contains large quantities of the salts that we just talked about.
The salts are alkaline like calcium. It pulls it out of the bone to neutralize the acidity in your body. We want to be proactive with bone health or lifestyle changes to combat osteoporosis or osteopenia. We have to be thinking about the pH levels of our bodies.
- Spinach – Can easily be put into a smoothie
- Cucumbers – I posted a recipe recently about a cucumber and vinegar mix. I always had it in my fridge where you would have cucumbers and they’re soaked in organic vinegar. Use a little Monk fruit to make them taste a little sweeter. It’s a great way to get cucumber and onion into your diet cucumbers with hummus regularly. They’re tens on the pH scale.
- Avocados
- Grapefruits
- Beets
- Lemons – Very acidic on the outside, but once metabolized end up being good for your pH.
Fruits and vegetables are going to drive your pH up. I recommend drinking some highly alkaline water if you’re going through a detox. We shouldn’t be having it on a daily basis, it’s not quite that simple.
Usually spring water, for example, is going to be right around that sweet spot. A seven, maybe a little bit higher. We want our drinks to be on more of the alkaline side when it comes to bone density, but try to focus on the foods, there are some great ones out there.
3. Physical Resistance
Rebounding
There are some great ways outside of hitting the gym that can bolster your bone health. Rebounding involves exercising on a mini trampoline and was created in 1930.
Those who rebounded showed increased bone formation and decreased bone resorption. It improved these health-related benefits of bone density formation. It also helps with balance.
I did my entire thesis in doctorate school on falls and how costly they are for a person’s life, for our economy, and for everyone involved. Rebounding is a great option for muscular leg strength.
Vibration therapy
I’ve used this clinically for years. Vibration therapy was initially developed as part of the space program with NASA. They found that each month that was spent in space, there was significant bone loss happening. It was to the tune of 1 to 2% per month because there was no gravity on these astronauts.
So to combat it, they found that they could retain the bone loss by standing on a lightly vibrating plate for 10 minutes a day. You don’t even have to do that much, even 2-5 minutes.
I have one at my house. The frequency of it really matters. You don’t want it to be too high. You don’t want it to be too low.
13 is the megahertz that it should vibrate and be frequent at. If it’s below that you won’t get as much benefit. I would never recommend going higher than that because the vibration can be damaging. We’re aligning the frequency of our muscles, ligaments, and bones to all vibrate at the same frequency.
They can be molded, so a lot of people will stretch or do postural exercises while on these.
Weight Training
Studies show that strength training over a long period of time can help prevent bone loss and may even be helpful to build new bones.
You can do light weights or you can do our 10-minute workouts that we regularly put together. You could just add some lightweights to that, but adding in weight training is definitely important from a bone density standpoint.
4. Posture
Posture is very underrated when it comes to osteoporosis and osteopenia.
When you think osteoporosis and osteopenia, you’re thinking of this person hunched over. They’re losing the support of the bones. The bones are softening compression fractures that can happen to the actual skeleton. There’s a major risk here.
It expedites bone loss and increases the fracture risk. There’s a really easy way to start combating this one. Use postural exercises.
Posture support is something that I have on my chair and at my desk. It pushes my low back forward and makes me sit upright while I’m working. That way I don’t end up leaning forward typing. It makes me sit in a better posture.
Look at your workstation or even your car. What I love about posture supports is that they double up. The reason there’s a strap on them is so it can fit around your seat, but also around your chair at work.
Spinal molding is a concept that I would highly encourage. If you have a toothbrush or floss at your house, then what do you have to help the other bones of your body?
Posture supports are like my toothbrush and floss. At night time I lay on these, the three-inch roll puts a 45-degree curve in the neck in a C shape.
The three-inch, bigger rolls are for the neck, and the two-inch is for the lower back because that curves about 30 degrees. These mold the ligaments of the spine and undo the bad posture.
5. Minerals
Calcium
Approximately 99% of your body’s calcium is stored in your skeleton. A review of 59 studies found that calcium intake through supplements or food resulted in a small improvement in bone mass density.
There’s research showing that too much calcium, over 600 milligrams daily, is going to lead to arterial calcification.
The calcium has to go somewhere and oftentimes we don’t have the right balance of minerals and nutrients in order to absorb the calcium and get it where it needs to be.
We don’t want our calcium to end up in the arteries or organs, but it happens commonly. There’s an explosion of arterial calcification. I believe one of the reasons is that calcium is grossly over recommended.
The best way to get calcium in your system without overdoing it is through food. I recommend the following for great sources of calcium:
- Green foods
- Broccoli
- Spinach
- Collard greens
You can also use a powder form of Greens, which is an excellent source of calcium.
I don’t have many of the greens listed above for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner. If you’re supplementing, I would recommend 75-100 milligrams.
If you’re eating clean and following the other steps that we’ve already covered, then you’re going to be getting a healthy dose in the food form that your body can use.
Boron
Boron is a trace mineral and has been found to play a critical role in bone growth and maintenance. It helps absorb other minerals, including calcium, magnesium, and vitamins D & A and allows them to work better.
A study on post-menopausal women found that taking 1-3 milligrams of boron per day significantly reduced the excretion of calcium and magnesium from the kidneys.
Boron helps you utilize the calcium you are taking. Many are just taking 1200 milligrams of calcium every day, but don’t have the proper minerals to get it absorbed.
Copper
We don’t want to overdo copper, just like calcium, but there is a link between low copper levels and low bone density.
Manganese
Manganese is associated with adequate levels with benefits of bone density.
Magnesium
When you have enough of it, magnesium is another great one. One study in 51 post-menopausal women found that 40% of women with osteoporosis or with low bone density had low circulating magnesium levels. We want to be getting three to 400 milligrams of this per day.
I like to take vitamin D supplements with magnesium because vitamin D needs it in order to be activated.
If you’re looking for easy food sources of magnesium, the following are excellent sources of magnesium:
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Black beans
You can check out our videos for more food sources high in magnesium.
Zinc
Zinc is important for bone growth and higher levels have been linked to better bone density scores. We need all of these minerals to be working together with their vitamin counterparts.
6. Vitamins
- Vitamin D – Not only does it bolster your immune system, but it is essential for bone health. It plays a key role in the absorption of calcium and helps regulate the turnover of bone properly in your body.
- Vitamin K2 – When it comes to immune health and calcium placement, high doses are needed to prevent fractures. This is especially important for post-menopausal women or those with osteoporosis. Vitamin D takes calcium, and K2 picks it up and shuttles it to your bone.
- Vitamin C & E – These play important roles in the prevention and natural solutions of osteoporosis because of their ability to increase bone density. Vitamin C is a precursor to all the collagen in your body, which involves your skin, hair, and nails.
8. Herbs
Winged Treebine
Winged Treebine is a very common medicinal plant used in Thailand. It can be used for metabolic syndrome, decreasing swelling in the body, and helping bones heal in a new bone formation.
Winged treebine are very effective when it comes to the health of our bones.
Horseradish Leaf
Horseradish leaves come from the Maringa or Farrah tree. One of the main problems with osteoporosis is the drugs that are causing osteoporosis.
This is the secondary cause of osteoporosis taking the form of a steroid. This could be in the form of, you know, something you’re using for allergies or hormones. Glucocorticoids, there are multiple different ones that impact bone density levels.
They induce osteoporosis and leave a susceptibility to fractures. This is a huge cost to people’s lives because we’re treating one thing and we’re getting side effects from drugs causing other conditions.
There’s a lot of research being poured into right now because of how many adverse effects this has and how high the cost of using them.
Horseradish leaf is a very effective natural solution with bone healing abilities, especially for those that are taking those medications.
If you’re not on those medications, it still delivers those benefits from the form of the leaf. We want these in as clean of forms as we can, the Winged Treebine and horseradish leaf, that’s usually in an organic form and are great natural herbs.
Summary
We’ve worked our way through eating properly and lowering sugar levels. We have some fun ways for physical resistance, including rebounding and vibration therapy. Add this on top of doing some weight training, postural support, and six minerals and some herbs that we really want to focus on.
If you’re wondering how to get this all in your system, there’s a link for that here. You can have a good regimen when it comes to your bone health and be proactive with osteoporosis, and osteopenia, and get help there. Check out those other resources that we have available and keep building and experiencing real health.
