Boning Up on Bone Health for Healthy Aging

Why Bone Health is Important for Healthy Aging

What do we need to ensure we all age well and do so in a healthy vibrant way?
How can we be the architects of our future, not the victims. Aging and wellness are popular topics in magazine and talk shows, but we need to be clear about what is evidence based as opposed to trendy, what has true merit, rather than anecdotal stories.

The number one event that is common to both men and women over the age of 50 is the risk and the likelihood of fracture. Slipping and falling is very, very common, but not everyone fractures. Some people will bounce and NOT break. What is the secret? How can we have strong robust bones?

Essential Vitamins

Well, bone health starts for us all when we are young. We need calcium and Vitamin D. No, I don’t work for the Milk Marketing Board of Canada, but in truth, they ae quite right. Calcium is essential and is absorbed by the body from milk, cheese and yogurt, much more efficiently than from tablets. For people over the age of 50, Osteoporosis Canada, out guideline body says we need 1200 mg per day. That is 3-4 servings of dairy. Yes, we can get some calcium from broccoli and from almonds and salmon, etc., but dairy products pack the biggest punch. Vitamin D is from the sun. See any of that lately? Even in the summer, when we do see sun, the sunblock we use to prevent skin cancer, blocks out the vitamin D absorption, so we need 1000-2000iu (international units) as adults over 50.

Our children should be having milk and calcium containing products and vitamin D. And you know our grandmothers and great-grandmothers fed us cod liver oil! They were right.

What does this mean. Our bones will be stronger and more able to stand the expected slow loss of bone with age.

What Bone Density Tests Tell You

By age 65 everyone, men and women need a bone density test. This tells us how much bone we have, the quantity of bone. It does not tell us, the quality of that bone. Bone quality is not as easily measured but we do know any fracture past age 40 should be evaluated to determine if it was a fragility fracture or a traumatic fracture. If you are hit by a truck, any fracture is traumatic. If you step of the curb, a fall from your standing height or 1-3 steps higher, that is generally a fragility fracture. And a fragility fracture is a predictor of weak bones, risk of hip fractures. A fracture is the event that warns us that our bone quality is not ideal.

Evaluate Your Risk

It is reasonable to evaluate your risk, whether you have fractured since age 40, whether your parent had a hip fracture, what drugs you may be on that can have an effect on bone, what underlying diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis that may impact bone health. By focusing on bone health, you may be doing great, or you may need some intervention, but the goal remains the same for you and your doctor:  maintain your activity, independence and ability to age in a healthy way for years to come.



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