> Health and Disease > Bones, Joints, and Muscles > osteoporosis

The word osteoporosis comes directly from Latin, meaning "porous bones." Not a desirable condition. Bones need to be dense and solid in order to support an active, healthy body. Porous bones are brittle, fragile, liable to break without warning, to shrink in size over time and create long-term pain and misery. Contrary to popular opinion this often begins decades before menopause.

Knowing how osteoporosis happens gives you the tools to prevent or reverse this devastating condition. During your teen years, you will form between 40 to 60 percent of your bone mass!

Mom was right. For your body to grow well, it absolutely requires optimum nutrition. In eating whole, plant-based foods, you will take in a variety of health-giving minerals and vitamins.

All of us, teens and adults alike, have bodies that are in a continual process of rebuilding and repairing. When your meals and snacks include more than rare instances of trans-fatty foods, animal proteins (meats), soft drinks, coffee, black teas (not herbal), caffeine, salt, sugar and yeast, a healthy mineral balance is lost. Typically eating large amounts of foods containing oxalic acid (such as spinach, chocolate, rhubarb and asparagus) when you are not eating calcium-rich foods will also cause calcium losses. All these items will increase calcium excretion and force your body to steal calcium from your bones.

Shun Sinful Sugar

When the minerals calcium, phosphorus and magnesium are not in proper combination with each other, bone loss occurs. Do you remember the game played with a tower of wooden blocks, in which players take turns removing blocks until the tower topples? Think of those blocks as vitamins and minerals in your body, and you’ll have a clear idea of what a poor diet does to your bones. You might not get into trouble until you’ve been playing the game for a while.

Forget pop! Most sodas contain more sugar than a big bowl of ice cream and sugar causes big calcium losses. What’s worse are the large amounts of phosphates in carbonated drinks and yeast. When we take in so much phosphorus, we overturn the proper calcium/phosphorus balance (2.5:1). This causes huge losses of calcium throughout your body–particularly from bones.

According to the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, teen girls who drink pop are more prone to have bone fractures and osteoporosis later in life than girls who avoid pop. When there are inadequate amounts of vitamins D (sunlight, fish oils) and C (fresh fruits and vegetables) in your diet, calcium is not used properly and bones are poorly built. An absence of the trace minerals manganese, iodine, silica, sulfur and boron will result in poor absorption and use of calcium, as well as poor storage of calcium (in your bones). ("Trace" minerals means that our bodies require very small amounts of these nutrients.)

So what foods should young people be eating? Lots of organic foods. Rich sources of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and manganese are raw milk cheeses and yogurt, tofu, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, carrots, broccoli, dark leafy greens, oatmeal, good blackstrap molasses, dried peas and beans, eggs, nuts, whole grains and most herbs.

Sulfur is found in the broccoli family (cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, mustard greens, kohlrabi), garlic, onions, eggs, legumes and nuts, while silica is abundant in whole grains and some herbs.

Exercise Essential

Ruth Yanor-Mcrae is a master herbalist, iridologist, writer and speaker with a practice in the Edmonton general Hospital.

Source: alive #227, September 2001

Special Advertising Feature

Stay Strong, Stay Young
Bone Health: Beyond Calcium
You probably don't think much about the health of your bones until you see an older woman making her way slowly down the street, stooped nearly in half, gingerly tapping her cane ahead of each step.