Bones play many roles in the body: providing structure, protecting organs, anchoring muscles and storing calcium. While it's important to build strong and healthy bones during childhood and adolescence, you can take steps during adulthood to protect your bone health too.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but only have 206 by adulthood.
Why is bone health important?
Your bones are continuously changing, new bone is made and old bone is broken down. When you're 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.
It is most likely to develop osteoporosis, a condition that causes bones to become weak and brittle, it depends on how much bone mass you attain by the time you reach the age of 30 and how rapidly you lose it after that.
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What affects healthy bones?
There are a number of things that affect healthy bones during human’s lifetime:
· Tobacco and alcohol use. Tobacco and alcohol use has a very high impact on weakening bones and body tissues. Similarly, taking more than two bottles of alcohol a day increases the chance of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition where bones become weak and brittle.
Age. Statistic has proven that the bones become weaker as one gets older. One is required to maintain the bone strength by exercising, eating a lot of calcium contained food and drinking of sufficient water.
Gender. Women have weaker bones compared to men. This is because women have fewer tissues than men.
Race and family history. According to the genetic research and study, one who has parents or siblings who have osteoporosis put him/her at a greater risk of getting it especially when they also have a 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. Also, prolonged absence of menstruation before menopause increases the risk of osteoporosis. In men, low levels of testosterone can cause a rapid loss of bone mass.
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Ways of maintaining a healthy bone.
a) Eating proteins and calcium.
Food enriched in proteins and calcium such as meat, milk cheese and fish helps maintain a healthy bone and should, therefore, be taken regularly. They increase the rate at which bones grow and make them stronger.
b) Maintaining a stable and healthy weight
A human body is supported by the bones and therefore too much weight can cause certain complications to the bones and make them weaker. According to research, a healthy mass for a body should be 80kgs and below to allow bones function properly.
c) Consider treatment options.
When one has known or is sure has osteoporosis, some drugs work by slowing breakdown of bones and increase the rate of new bone formation. Therefore, doctor's advice on medication is vital.
d) Regular exercising
Regular body exercise helps break down some of the fats and toxic substances that may be of harm to the body. In addition to eating a nutritious diet, one should ensure that a healthy weight for good bone health.
‘Bone health is important in all stages. People tend to take it for granted as symptoms do not always show until it’s more advanced.
BY BRIAN SAMUEL
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