In osteoporosis, your bones become less dense and more fragile, making your risk of fracture greater and allowing your bones to break easier than they normally would.
Worldwide, nearly 9 million bone fractures per year are attributed to osteoporosis.
If you have been told that you have the condition, you are not alone.
Some 75 million people are affected in Europe, the United States and Japan.
Here, you can learn what is known about why osteoporosis happens and what you can do to make your bones stronger.
Why Osteoporosis Happens There is a constant bone breakdown and bone building process going on in your body throughout your life.
Bones are broken down to get at calcium and other nutrients when they are needed elsewhere in the body.
Bones are built back up when nutrient intake is sufficient and when the body senses that stronger bones are needed.
Osteoporosis happens when the body's bone building activity starts to decline.
Fewer minerals are deposited in the bones.
The exact reason for this is unknown.
Aging may be one of the reasons, although osteoporosis is known to affect people of all ages.
Studies tell us that average bone mineral density peaks at around age 30 and then starts to decline.
Everyone ages but everyone does not develop osteoporosis.
This means that other factors, not just the aging process, are involved.
Heredity and race appear to be factors that increase a person's risk.
People of European or Asian decent seem to be more likely to develop the condition.
Women have a sharper drop in bone mineral density after the age of 50 than do men.
After menopause, less estrogen is produced as the ovaries shut down.
A sharp drop in bone mineral density is often seen in young women who must have their ovaries removed.
Apparently estrogen plays a role in the bone-building process.
Poor or inadequate intake of specific essential nutrients contributes more to the development and worsening of osteoporosis than any other risk factor.
Obviously, your body needs minerals to build bone but other nutrients are needed to ensure that the minerals are deposited properly and that everything is in balance.
How Osteoporosis Can Be Helped Research conducted over the years has shown that osteoporosis can be helped when nutritional insufficiencies or deficiencies are addressed.
But it's not just calcium that you need.
In fact, too much calcium in the absence of vitamin K or vitamin D could result in mineral deposits in the arteries, increasing your risk of heart disease.
What you need is a well-designed supplement containing at a minimum: • Vitamin D3 - the most absorbable form of the nutrient and the type naturally made by the body during sun exposure - insufficient vitamin D intake leads to increased parathyroid hormone production which in turn leads to increased bone breakdown and bone loss • Vitamin K2 - the correct form of the nutrient that ensures calcium and other minerals are deposited in the bones, not the arteries • Calcium • Magnesium • Trace minerals: strontium, silicon and boron • Mangosteen extract - a fruit extract that is known to be beneficial in osteoporosis If you give it the right nutritional support, your body's bone-building process can do the rest.
Osteoporosis can be helped with a well-designed bone protection supplement.
In my next article, you will learn about a natural supplement that can give you the proper nutritional support so that your body's bone-building process can go to work.
Please click the BONE-PROTEC link below in the resource author box.