Looking after your bone health throughout life, especially as you age, is key for maintaining mobility and preventing falls and injuries.
Bone density is a key measure of how healthy and strong your bones are and testing your bone density can show if you are at risk of conditions like osteoporosis or osteopaenia. While bone density naturally lowers as you age, there are things you can do to look after your bones and keep them as strong as possible over time.
More than just getting enough calcium, here are 10 surprising tips for looking after the health of your bones throughout life.
1. Exercise for muscle and bone strength
Regular physical activity and exercise play a role in maintaining and improving bone density.
Maintaining strong muscles helps to support your bones and reduce the amount of stress that is placed on them over a lifetime, and some exercises can even improve the density of your bones.
In particular, weight-bearing exercise promotes bone health.This just means moving your body bearing your own weight. Brisk walking, dancing or skipping are great examples of ways you can move your body every day.
Weight training or resistance training are also great ways to get moving to promote bone health. This is because the ability to build bone, and maintain bone density, depends on the way that stress is applied to the bone. It’s important that your weight training increases in difficulty over time.
Find out more about the types of exercise that benefit your bone health from Healthy Bones Australia. If you are exercising for the first time or you’ve got any concerns about becoming more active, talk to your GP about the best and safest way to begin exercising.
2. Not just for your elders – eat for your bones as a teenager
There are a lot of changes that happen to the body during puberty. A teenager’s brain becomes more advanced and their decision making and self-control is improved. They do however, become clumsier and this is because they are growing so fast it takes a while for the brain to adjust.
Not only will their organs get bigger and stronger, but their bones will increase in thickness. In fact, approximately half of a person’s bone mass is accumulated during adolescence.
It’s important to eat plenty of foods with calcium to help support bone growth at this time. You can find more information about the number of serves of different food groups a teenager should eat from Eat for Health.
3. Think calcium first when pregnant or breastfeeding
A developing baby needs a lot of calcium. In fact, if a pregnant person doesn’t get enough calcium, their baby will draw what it needs from their bones.
The good news is that when someone is pregnant, their body will make changes during pregnancy to help protect their bones. Pregnant people can absorb calcium from foods better than people who are not pregnant, and and produce more oestrogen which helps to protect bones.
To help support bone health during pregnancy and breastfeeding it is important to include at least two to three serves of dairy products or equivalent high-calcium foods every day.
Calcium is also important for babies bone development, so if you’re breastfeeding, it’s important that you eat a healthy, varied diet with high-calcium foods which will help to make your breastmilk nutrient dense. You may have bone loss while feeding which could be due to the baby’s increased need for calcium, which is drawn from your bones.
Any bone mass lost during pregnancy or breastfeeding is typically restored within several months after the baby’s delivery (or several months after breastfeeding is stopped).
There is a rare condition called pregnancy associated osteoporosis where a pregnant person’s bones break easily during pregnancy, or in the weeks after giving birth. It’s important you speak to your doctor if you have any signs or symptoms.
Find out more about healthy eating during pregnancy and breastfeeding from Eat for Health.
4. Look after your bones during perimenopause and menopause
Menopause isn’t just about the end of the menstrual cycle. There are a lot of other changes that occur in the body during the period of perimenopause and menopause.
During perimenopause, oestrogen and progesterone production begin to slow down, which, you guessed it, can affect bone health.
Oestrogen plays a role in bone health and during perimenopause your oestrogen levels rapidly decline. When oestrogen levels decrease, bones lose calcium and other minerals at a much faster rate. On average, those who are post-menopausal will lose up to 10% of their bone mass in the first five years, after which the rate of bone loss slows down.
If you are perimenopausal or in menopause, you can talk to your GP about lifestyle changes and medications that can help reduce your risk of osteoporosis.
5. Know how smoking and alcohol use can affect your bones
Long term smoking can cause a significant reduction in bone density leading to an increased risk of fracture. Female smokers may also go through menopause 1.5-2 years earlier than the average, and this will increase the risk of developing conditions like osteoporosis earlier than most.
Repeated and regular high alcohol consumption can cause serious long-term health consequences like damage to muscles and bones.
To look after your bone health, it’s best to avoid smoking andlimit alcohol to no more than 10 standard drinks per week and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day.
6. Make bone density maintenance a priority as you age
It’s no surprise that age is a factor when it comes to your bone health. Most of your bone growth will happen when you are a child and teenager, but you are never too young or too old to improve your bone health. Your bones will stop growing and increasing in strength in your twenties. From 30 you can only maintain your bone mass.
It’s from this time that you are at a greater risk of conditions like osteoporosis and fractures, but these don’t have to be a normal part of getting older. To maintain bone density as you age, Osteoporosis Australia recommends varying the types of exercise you do, including some weight bearing exercise and some resistance training, maintaining a healthy diet, performing weight bearing exercises and talking to your GP about your bone health.
are all important steps for healthy active ageing and protecting your bones.
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes a decrease in the amount of bone in the skeleton and deteriorates the bone structure. Following the tips in this article can help you prevent osteoporosis from developing.
7. Eat for bone health
Eating a healthier diet and maintaining a healthy weight is important in reducing the risk of bone disorders. It’s not just about calcium and dairy; you should include food from all 5 food groups in your daily intake.
Dairy or dairy alternatives is an essential food group, but why do you need it? It’s important to include calcium in our diets as the human body cannot make its own calcium and it’s constantly being lost through your hair, skin and nails. Find out exactly how much calcium you need for your age.
You may know that dairy foods have lots of calcium, but calcium is also found in leafy green veggies, tinned fish, baked beans and nuts!
The amino acids found in protein are also important for maintaining your bone structure. Dairy, meat, fish, lentils, beans and nuts are all good sources of protein. You should also include leafy greens such as kale and spinach which contain vitamin K and magnesium. Vitamin K is the second most abundant protein in bone after collagen while magnesium plays an important role in bone formation.
Zinc plays a role in bone tissue renewal and mineralisation. Good sources of zinc include lean red meat, whole grain cereals, pulses and legumes.
Talk to your GP if you have any questions about your diet and before you start taking any new vitamin or mineral supplements.
8. Get your dose of vitamin D
You might have heard of people in other countries needing to seek sunlight to get vitamin D,
but in Queensland deliberately seeking sun exposure significantly increases your skin cancer risk due to our year-round high UV environment.
Most Queenslanders will generate sufficient vitamin D through their day-to-day outdoor activities, like hanging out the washing or walking to the bus stop. Using sun protective behaviours, including wearing sunscreen does not stop your body synthesising vitamin D.Talk to your doctor if you have concerns that you may be vitamin D deficient.
A lack of sun exposure can mean you are not getting enough vitamin Dwhich your body needs to absorb calcium. Daily exposure to the sun is important maintaining vitamin D levels.
Aim to get a few minutes of sunlight most days of the week by walking to the bus stop or mailbox. As always you should be sun safe by avoiding peak UV times and using sunscreen. Using sun protection including sunscreen does not stop your body generating vitamin D.
You should always talk to your GP about your individual needs for calcium and vitamin D before adding supplements to your routine.
9. Manage thyroid problems
Your thyroid is a gland located at the front of the throat, responsible for hormones that regular processes in your body like growth and energy use. There are a number of different conditions that can affect the thyroid.
High concentrations of thyroid hormones can lead to more bone breakdown than bone formation, which affects bone density and can cause osteoporosis.
Some medications used to treat thyroid conditions can also have an impact your bone health. Talk to your doctor if you are concerned about the impact your condition or treatment could be having on your bones and what you can do to prevent damage.
10. Understand if your medications could affect your bone health
Some treatments and medication can increase the risk of developing osteoporosis. For example, medicines for breast cancer, prostate cancer, epilepsy and some antidepressantscan affect your bone health.
The use of long-term (more than two months) corticosteroid therapycan also reduce bone formation and density. You might be prescribed these medicines for conditions like chronic airways disease, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseasesor some skin conditions.
There are also some medications that can help reduce the risk of broken bones. If you have any concerns about your bone health, you should talk to your GP about changes you could make to improve your bone health and whether there are medications that could be helpful for you.
