Preventing or Reversing Osteoporosis- Debunking the Myths

What You Can Do About Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis- What it is, What it is not, and What you can do about it

What it is

The main misunderstanding about osteoporosis is that it is a calcium deficiency disease or an estrogen deficiency disease. It is not. Osteoporosis is a condition in which calcium is being lost from bones faster than the bones can be rebuilt. This is caused by several factors, including; lack of exercise, progesterone deficiency, poor diet, mineral deficiencies and unhealthy lifestyle choices.

What it is not

With osteoporosis, regardless of how much calcium a woman adds to her diet, her bones are losing calcium faster than it is being replaced. This results in decreased bone density, which increases the risk of bone fractures, especially as women age. Osteoporosis is not caused by a lack of dietary calcium.

Osteoporosis is not caused by a lack of estrogen. According to Scientific American's 1991 medical text, "Estrogen decreases bone resorption, associated with the decrease in bone resorption is a decrease in bone formation. Therefore, estrogen should not be expected to increase bone mass." There is currently no scientific evidence that estrogen rebuilds new bone.

In fact, in 1995 The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a major study, involving over 9500 women across the United States, found that current estrogen hormone replacement therapy used by women over the age of 65, had no benefits in preventing hip fractures.

Resorption is just one step in the two part process of bone formation. During resorption, osteoclast cells dissolve or resorp the older bone cells in your body. Resorption leaves tiny spaces in the bone, into which the osteoblast cells move, rebuilding or "remodeling" new bone.

Women of northern European descent over the age of 50, who are relatively thin, and whose bone mineral density is over two standard deviations below the mean of normally healthy young women, are at the highest risk for this disease.

What you can do about it