The Effects of Diet and Exercise on Osteoporosis

Imagine walking down the street and simply stepping off a curb and hearing an awful cracking sound and feeling pain shoot immediately from your ankle. This scenario can unfortunately be a common one for someone that suffers the later stages of osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is a degenerative disease in which the mass and density of your bones break down and become brittle. This condition can be extremely dangerous and is actually listed as the top 12 cause of death for people over 50. While its effects are serious and even life-threatening, osteoporosis can be prevented or even avoided altogether if you change just two small things: your diet and exercise program.

You see, the reason bones become brittle is because as we age, our bones lose the calcium that we built up we were younger. This happens for a variety of reasons but the most common is simply that we don't get enough calcium in our diets as our bodies become less efficient at processing it as we get older. This means that we may have eaten the same exact diet for our entire lives but it is this lack of adjustment that is the culprit. Women, because of their smaller bone mass, are at much higher risk for this disease than men but it does affect men as well. It is important to note the types of foods that can eat will help to provide your body with all the calcium it needs to help fight osteoporosis. Milk is often thought of as the perfect provider of calcium but because of its high protein content, it actually reduces the amount of calcium your body is able to absorb so it doesn't provide a good source in this case. Foods like yogurt, cheese, green leafy vegetables, egg whites, salt water fish, and almonds make great sources from which to get your calcium. In addition, many products such as orange juice are fortified with calcium and there are many quality calcium supplements on the market as well.

In addition to simply adding calcium into your diet, another area in which to pay attention to is the amount of exercise that you get on a regular basis. Believe it or not, your bones are just like your muscles in that the more you exercise, the stronger they get. Your bones truly respond to exercise in a positive way and the more intense the exercise, the better it helps to build bone density. Obviously, if you have experienced years of sedentary lifestyle and your bones are already in a brittle state, you'll want to take your exercise program very slow at first so as not to cause yourself any undue harm. Again, the bigger the person is, the larger their bone mass will be making them less susceptible to this disease. Smaller framed men and women should take caution when beginning any impact bearing exercise training.

So, while osteoporosis can be harmful and even lead to death in the worst case scenarios, simply by modifying your diet and adding a consistent exercise regimen you can greatly reduce your chances of ever being affected by this terrible malady.

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