A final word about calcium

Calcium hs been recommended a number of times throughout this series. It is an essential nutrient and seems to have many disease prevention benefits.

Make sure you get enough Vitamin D to help with the absorption of the calcium. Both calcium and Vitamin D can also benefit your bone health and help ward off osteoporosis

There are a variety of reasons for this, some hormonal and some related to the fact that calcium absorption lessens in elderly intestines. Also, certain medications decrease the body’s ability to absorb calcium, including antacids .

Older adults need to be particularly conscious about the level of calcium in their diet and about which medications interfere with calcium absorption.

It’s best not to wait until you’re fifty-something to start preventing osteoporosis. Building stronger bones with a calcium-rich diet and weight-bearing exercise in your twenties and thirties is more likely to prevent osteoporosis than preventive measures in your fifties.

Other functions of calcium.
Besides promoting healthy tooth enamel, calcium helps muscles. Muscles can cramp, and heart muscles can even fail, if these muscles are not supplied with just the right amount of calcium.

Nerve impulses, the transmission of information between nerve fibers, will not function properly without just the right amount of calcium.

For example, muscles twitch (tetany) when the calcium supply to neuromuscular cells is insufficient. Calcium is one of the most vital minerals for optimal functioning of your entire body, tissues as well as bones, so in concluding this series, we can say that green leafy vegetables, fruit, and lowfat dairy with calcium can help protect you from a number of the diseases on our list.

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Osteopenia and osteoporosis continued

• Restrict caffeine consumption in your diet to less than 300 mg per day. Depending on brewing methods, the average cup (8 oz.) of coffee contains between 115 and 175 mg caffeine; the average size (12 oz.) soda contains between 30 and 50 mg caffeine, depending on the brand.

It is thought that both caffeine and soda rob you of bone as you age.

It is believed that the carbonation in soda affects bones in two ways, causing the porousness, and blocking the absorption of calcium due to the chemical phosporous in the soda.

You should have a higher ratio of calcium to phosporous to get maximum absorption.

In addition, the sugar in soda is very unhealthy, and wasted calories compared to the 150 or so calories per glass which you could expend on a baked potato with lowfat cheese, or just about 2 light yogurts.

There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests that artificial sweeteners actually promote weight GAIN, not weight loss.

If you are thirsty and can’t live without coffee or a drink with your meal, why not try more milk instead. Choose skim, and make yourself a latte or iced latte with mainly milk and a bit of coffee. Instead of soda, what about a fruit smoothie. You will not only feel like you are having a treat, you will be building bone and helping prevent overeating.

When looking to your diet for disease prevention, emphasise natural foods, not pre-packaged convenience foods. Try to wean yourself and your family off the soda habit.

In Diet and Disease Prevention Part 9, learn more about diet and how to prevent Type 2 Diabetes

Diet and Disease Prevention Part 7
Prevent Osteopenia and osteoporosis

Continued from Part 6

The following recommendations are a summary of the major research that has been carried out on what you can do to prevent osteopenia and osteoporosis.

• Consume 1,200 to 1,500 mg of calcium each day in the form of loawfat dairy, plus natural sources of calcium such as spinach and sardines.

• Take calcium supplements if the amount of calcium in your diet is low. Not all forms of calcium are absorbed well by the body, and you will also require Vitamin D and magnesium, and Vitamin C to help with absorption. Calcium citrate is the best ratio of absorption to cost and ease of finding the supplement on store shelves.

• Get an adequate amount of vitamin D (400 to 800 IU per day).

• Limit sodium consumption to 2,400 mg per day, no more than 1,500 mg if you also have concerns over high blood pressure.

• Follow a dietary pattern that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

In Diet and Disease Prevention Part 8, learn more about diet and how to prevent osteoporosis

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