Tips to keep your bones healthy

Protecting your bone health is easier than you think. Start by understanding how diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors can affect your bone mass.

Why is it important to have healthy bones?
Your bones are continuously changing, new bones are made and old bones are broken down. When you are young, your body makes new bone faster than it breaks down old bone, and your bone mass increases. Most people reach their peak bone mass around age 30. After that, bone remodeling continues, but you lose slightly more bone mass than you gain.

How likely you are to develop osteoporosis — a condition that causes bones to become weak and brittle — depends on how much bone mass you attain by the time you reach age 30 and how rapidly you lose it after that. The higher your peak bone mass, the more bone you have “in the bank” and the less likely you are to develop osteoporosis as you age.

 What affects bone health?

A number of factors can affect your bone health. For example:

• The amount of calcium in your diet. A diet low in calcium contributes to diminished bone density, early bone loss and an increased risk of fractures.
• Physical activity. People who are physically inactive have a higher risk of osteoporosis than those with a more active life-style.
• Tobacco and alcohol usage. Research suggests that tobacco use contributes to weaker bones. Similarly, having more than two alcoholic drinks a day on a regular basis, increases the risk of osteoporosis, possibly due to the alcohol interfering with the body’s ability to absorb calcium.
• Gender, size and age. Women are at greater risk of osteoporosis than men, because women have less bone tissue. Being underweight (with a body mass index of 19 or less) or have a small body frame are also a risk factors, because you may have less bone mass to draw from as you age. As you age, your bones become thinner and weaker.
• Race and family history. You’re at greatest risk of osteoporosis if you’re white or of Asian descent. In addition, having a parent or sibling who has osteoporosis puts you at greater risk — especially if you also have a family history of fractures.
  
• Hormone levels.Too much thyroid hormone can cause bone loss. In women, bone loss increases dramatically at menopause due to dropping estrogen levels. Prolonged periods absence of menstruation (amenorrhea), before menopause also increases the risk of osteoporosis. In men, low testosterone levels can cause a loss of bone mass.
• Eating disorders and other conditions.People who have anorexia or bulimia are at risk of bone loss. In addition, stomach surgery (gastrectomy), weight-loss surgery and conditions such as Crohn’s disease, celiac disease and Cushing’s disease can affect your body’s ability to absorb calcium.
• Certain medications.Long-term use of corticosteroid medications, such as prednisone, cortisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone, are damaging to bone. Other drugs that may increase the risk of osteoporosis include aromatase inhibitors to treat breast cancer, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, methotrexate, some anti-seizure medications and proton pump inhibitor.