How do you keep your bones healthy? Since your bones support your entire body, keeping them healthy should be one of your priorities. So here are some tips and ideas to help you keep your bones healthy!Read More >
How To Improve Your Bone Health
How do you improve your bone health? Building and maintaining healthy bones is a great investment in your health since they protect vital organs like the brain and support the entire body.
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Tips For Healthy Bones
Who needs tips for healthy bones in their life? Keeping and maintain healthy bones as we age is a very important part of keeping ourselves healthy. Here are some tips we found on http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/ about how to keep your bones healthy and strong.
Each year, approximately 1.5 million older Americans suffer fractures because of weak bones, leading to temporary or permanent disability, and even death.Read More >
Foods For Healthy Bones & Joints
Food for healthy bones and joints is easier to incorporate in your diet than you’d think. Though virtually all persons experience the effects of wear and tear on their joints as they age, these effects can be minimized by eating a diet rich in nutrients that keep the bones and joints healthy.
Foods For Healthy Bones and Joints
Calcium is one of the most important nutrients required to build and maintain healthy bones and joints. It can be obtained from dairy products like milk and cheese. Broccoli and kale are other good sources of calcium and can be consumed by vegetarians.Read More >
Give Joints & Bones Some TLC With a Daily Dose of Vitamin D
Do you eat healthy, exercise regularly, and take a daily multi-vitamin? If so, good for you! You’re certainly doing a stand-up job at supporting the health and overall well-being of your body. However, even those with the healthiest habits might be missing out on a critical component for optimal wellness – vitamin D.
So what’s the big deal with vitamin D? There are actually a number of benefits that this particular vitamin offers your body, including:
- Stimulates new cell growth
- Boosts your immune system
- Lowers risk of diabetes
- Improves cardiovascular health
- Fights diseases
- Reduces blood pressure and cholesterol
- Aids in calcium absorption
Last, but certainly not least, vitamin D promotes strong and healthy bones. The reason for this is because essentially, vitamin D teams up with calcium and nourishes your body by increasing bone density. Together, these two nutrients are the keys to success when it comes to bone health.
The reason why bone health is so important is because it is something that affects everybody eventually. As we age, as gracefully as possible of course, certain changes are simply unavoidable. Obvious external changes will take place – wrinkles, gray hair, decreased height, skin spots, etc. – but less noticeable internal changes will also occur, such as weakened bones.
Even though our bodies are able to produce some vitamin D on their own, it is not a substantial amount. In order to maintain optimal bone density and strength, and prevent osteoporosis, you need to be conscious of your vitamin D intake.
Lucky for us, there are plenty of sources of vitamin D readily available to us. Use them all or pick your favorites to better your bones.
Sunshine
When your body absorbs sunlight through the skin, it produces vitamin D and then stores it for up to a month.
Seafood
Various kinds of fish and raw oysters are packed with high amounts of vitamin D.
Eggs
Another good source of vitamin D is eggs, with the yolk offering the most benefit. Caviar can be included in this category as well.
Fortified Foods
Certain food items are fortified with additional vitamins and minerals, which makes them an ideal choice. Read labels and look for fortified products.
Deli Meat
Ham and sausage are high in vitamin D, but they can also be high in fat content so these deli meats should be consumed in moderation.
Mushrooms
Vegetarians can obtain adequate amounts of vitamin D from mushrooms.
No matter how old you are, it’s never too early to fight bone loss. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that vitamin D is the most common type of deficiency. Give your body the TLC it deserves with hearty helpings of vitamin D, which makes bones efficient so you won’t be deficient.
Written by: Kaity Nakagoshi, Online Community Director
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About the Author
As the Online Community Director for Tenet Florida Physician Services, Kaity is able to connect with fellow health nuts and broaden her knowledge of a wide range of topics. Kaity was born and raised in sunny Florida, and obtained two bachelor’s degrees from the University of South Florida. Some of her favorite things are hot yoga, online shopping, Sunday brunch, college football, hair bows and headbands, playing golf, and FaceTiming with her niece.
Top 7 Tips to Strengthen Bones
Healthy bones are important for movement, supporting the body to maintain its posture and protecting vital organs like the brain. Bones are also vital production centers since blood cells are created in the bone marrow.
To keep your bones strong and healthy so that they can function normally you should:
1. Eat calcium rich foods
Eat calcium rich foods like milk, yogurt, cheese, almonds, soybeans and green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale since the body will remove this mineral from the bones if a person does not take adequate amounts in their diet.
2. Bask in the sun
Bask in the sun for at least 15 minutes thrice a week since the body makes vitamin D when it is exposed to sunlight. This sunshine vitamin is vital for strong bones because the body needs it to absorb calcium. During winter, compensate by taking a supplement or by eating sardines and other oily fish as well as shrimp, liver, egg yolks and fortified cereal.
3. Eat vitamin K rich foods
Eat vitamin K rich foods like broccoli, bok choy, kale, spinach and Swiss chard since this nutrient is needed to make proteins for healthy bones and reduce the loss of calcium from the body.
4. Limit coffee intake
Drink less than 4 cups of coffee each day because too much caffeine can interfere with the body’s ability to absorb calcium and increase the rate of bone loss from the body, as well as increase the risk for developing fractures.
5. Exercise
Spend 5 hours each week doing weight bearing exercises like walking, running, hiking, dancing, skiing, pushing a lawn mower and vacuuming your home since bones gets stronger when they are used. Regular physical exercise also helps prevent the falls that fracture bones by improving balance, coordination and strength.
6. Stop smoking
Stop smoking since studies have shown that cigarettes can prevent the body from absorbing calcium and decrease bone mass.
7. Limit alcohol intake
Limit consumption of alcohol to one alcoholic drink per day for women and two for men because heavy consumption can cause bone loss by interfering with the activity of vitamin D.
Written by: Marian Kim, Rust Built, Marketing Services
Maintain Healthy Bones With Exercise
Exercise is one of the best ways to increase your bone mass and maintain healthy bones. We want to be sure when starting an exercise program that we are doing so safely. If you have or are at risk of developing osteoporosis, learn what risks are involved and how to take preventative measures when beginning your exercise routine. Take care of your bones by using the following tips from our expert, Dr. Scott Weiss:
Osteoporosis is more common than it should be. Although we don’t know how to completely stop bone loss, we can take steps to prevent many of the fractures. Prevention starts in childhood, with good nutrition and exercise. Fall prevention is especially important in elderly persons. Sometimes doctors and their patients just want to take a medication for osteoporosis, without paying attention to these basic building blocks of bone health. The medications will not be as effective if there is inadequate calcium and vitamin D in the body. The other building blocks are proper exercise, weight gain and proper over all nutrition, caffeine reduction, smoking cessation and fall prevention in elderly.
Follow some of these general principals to ensure a safe & productive exercise program:
- Exercises that you can perform that are weight bearing in nature are the best (walking, dancing, hiking, stair-climbing). Stressing the bones through its long axis is optimal.
- Do not perform large impact activities that cause undue jarring to the spine.
- Resistance exercise can generate tension in the bones thus stimulating the bones to grow. This refers to training with either light weights or elastic bands.
- Bone density increases the most with higher weights and fewer repetitions.
- Increase your weight slowly and progress accordingly. Listen to your body.
- Postural exercises that help you become more upright can reduce stress on specific areas of the body.
- Balance exercises help maintain equilibrium and reduce the risk of falling. (Explore Tai-chi)
- Avoid movements to the end of your range (twisting, forward or backward bending).
- Most studies show that an exercise program of nine months in duration will produce the desired increase in bone mineral density.
- The frequency of exercise recommended is 3-5 days/week.
- Always warm-up and cool-down.
- During activities of daily living, become conscious of your positioning. Bend from the hips to bend down, don’t slouch when you sit and stabilize the lower back with your hand when sneezing or coughing.
- Remember: Small 10 minute bouts of activity have shown to be just as beneficial as one long bout of exercise.
How Adults Keep Their Bones Healthy
As children, we ran around the playground, played soccer, and rode our bikes without thinking about making our bones strong. We thought drinking milk was all we had to do for our bones. But, as adults, we need to be aware of how to keep our bones healthy in order to lead youthful, active lifestyles. “Healthy” bones mean strong bones.
The teamwork between several nutrients creates the dense living tissue called bone. Many factors contribute to strong, healthy bones: vitamins, minerals, amino acids and exercise.
Keeping bones healthy with vitamins
It’s a well-known fact that calcium is highly important to make healthy bones. To get enough calcium into your body, eat low-fat dairy products, fish and dark green leafy vegetables.
Keeping bones healthy with minerals
Because bone is about 70% mineral content, phosphorous, magnesium, silicon, zinc, and copper are important to keeping the bone matrix strong. Eat low-fat, protein-rich foods to get phosphorus, such as steak, fish, nuts, seeds, and beans. Add spinach, oysters and…..get this….dark chocolate… (yes!) to your diet for magnesium.
Keeping bones healthy with amino acids
Bone is very high in protein content. Plant-based proteins are superior–nuts, oats, and quinoa. Amino acids found in protein, such as lysine, arginine, glycine, cysteine and glutamine, are responsible for the absorption of calcium and the regeneration of bone tissue.
Did you know that the interior of a bone is made of collagen? Registered Dietitian, Holly Larson, who is also Oxford Press’s Contributing Writer says that copper and vitamin C form collagen in the matrix of the bone.
Collagen forms from foods rich in copper and vitamin C, so eat seafood, nuts, grains, organ meats, citrus fruits, bell peppers and strawberries. A high-protein diet provides the building blocks to synthesize a healthy bone matrix.
Keeping bones healthy with exercise
Lunges, jumping rope and push-ups put positive “stress” on bones, making them work against the pull of gravity. Exercises such as walking, jogging, and running also put that same type of stress on the bones to make them stronger. Weight lifting is excellent to build strong bones. By bearing more than just body-weight during weight training, the bone is made denser.
Adults need strong bones, just like when you were kids. As a grown-ups, you can keep your bones as strong as a child’s, when you were running around the playground.
Written by: Ruby Moseley, Rust Built, Marketing Services