Bone Health Might Mean Hormone and Supplement Optimization

Your hormone levels and your hormone fluctuations can all have a huge impact on your bone health

To be healthy we also will remind women that calcium is necessary for bone health. It also needs helper nutrition in the form of potassium, magnesium, Vitamin D and Vitamin K. In the right form, proper supplements can make sure you maintain healthy levels.

Osteoporosis, the bone disease which is increased fragile bone specifically due to the loss of calcium. If too much calcium is lost the bone is weakened and at risk for fractures, is a fairly common disease.

Vitamin D is essential for absorption of calcium from a gut. The more gut dysbiosis you have, even with adequate Vitamin D in your diet the absorption of calcium could be compromised. So endless supplements with poor gut health are not going to help your bones like they should.

Watch pop and soda consumption, the phosphorous can block your calcium absorption. If you don’t lay down enough bone in youth and young adulthood, you will never have bones as strong as they could be. So in youth you need good calcium, as well as a diet that will not block the calcium you are consuming.

Regardless of how excellent your calcium intake is and how strong your bones are: through genetics, or weight training or extra calcium; we inevitably lose bone as we age, regardless of our calcium intake. Thus get tested to see where bone health is.

Women will lose about 1/2% per year in our late 30s and 40s, by the time we are in menopause we begin to lose 4%/year, and in old age we still lose 1-2%/year. In menopause, the loss of estrogen is responsible for the frighteningly fast bone loss over those few years. Breastfeeding can cause a woman to lose 10% of her bone mass, if you then stop breastfeeding you do gain some, but not all of that bone lost.

And too much calcium, is that possible? The answer is yes! In a study published in the BMJ in 2010, getting 600 to 1000 mg of calcium per day is healthy, but over 1400 mg per day, in older women led to heart attacks! Abnormally high calcium intake can also cause kidney stones. So remember too much of a good thing, is not good.

Oral contraception is protective against bone loss, DMPA is not necessarily protective, but is not as mot of a bone health risk as was once thought.

The lack of estrogen and testosterone, a natural consequence of menopause, places women at risk of osteoporosis as they age. To counter these effects, most women are begun on osteoporosis therapy only after osteopenia sets in. However, many of us believe in preventative therapy, and the University of Buffalo researchers state that some women are prescribed estrogen therapy along with supplements of calcium and vitamin D.

We have 106 bones, and they all are susceptible to calcium loss, but the bone of our spine and hip seem to be among the most fragile. This is why we use DXA scans of our Bone Mineral Density to check on our bones. There is an old wives saying that “we lose a tooth for each pregnancy” and it reflects the fact that we pass a significant amount of our body’s calcium to our developing fetuses and our breastfeeding babies.

Testosterone, estrogen, and thyroid optimization can help sleep, moods, libido, reduce hot flashes, and even make your skin healthier! Check our menopause health guidebook and learn more about your bones!