Your Bones

From PART 1: YOU ARE AT RISK FOR OSTEOPOROSIS

Chapter 1: If You Are a Woman, You’re at High Risk for Osteoporosis

What Is Osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis—literally, “porous bone” (osteo = bone, porosis = porous)—is a progressive loss of bone that results in bone thinning and increased vulnerability to fracture. Osteoporotic fractures—also called fragility fractures because they happen in thinned out, fragile bone—occur primarily in the wrist, rib, spine, and hip, often during daily activities, such as stepping off a curb, which should normally pose no risk for a fracture.

Why Are Women at Higher Risk Than Men of Losing Too Much Bone?

For two key reasons:

First, women start out with less bone than men. Women’s peak bone mass is naturally less than men’s because women are smaller and have less muscle. When we use our muscles, the muscle contractions put stress on bone, to which it responds by becoming stronger. Men’s larger muscles produce stronger contractions, resulting in more stress and approximately 35–40% larger bones.

Secondly, the female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, play vital roles in bone remodeling, and levels of both hormones drop with menopause (medically defined as the last menstrual period); for most women in the Western world, the median age for menopause is 51, but the range for its onset is large—generally If You Are a Woman between ages 42 and 58. Estrogen prevents excessive action by osteoclasts, specialized bone cells that remove worn out or dead bone to make room for new bone. Progesterone is required by osteoblasts, the bone-forming cells

that pull calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous from the blood to build new bone. Production of both hormones greatly declines during a woman’s transition through menopause, resulting in increased bone resorption and decreased formation of new bone.

Am I Really at Risk? How Common Is Osteoporosis?

If you are a woman, the answer is emphatically “Yes!” One in four women will develop osteoporosis after menopause. Lifetime risk for fragility fractures, an indicator of osteoporosis, is 50% in women versus 25% in men. Twenty-five million Americans have osteoporosis or are at significant risk for it. Osteoporosis is responsible for at least 1.5 million fractures each year, including 250,000 hip fractures.

Men Are Not Immune to Osteoporosis

Although women are most at risk, 25–33% of men will experience an osteoporotic fracture in their lifetime. In men, however, the rapid increase in fracture risk begins later, at approximately age 70.

What Are My Chances of Recovering from a Hip Fracture Due to Osteoporosis?

Nearly one-third of all women and one-sixth of all men will suffer an osteoporotic hip fracture. The most catastrophic of fractures, hip fracture leads to death in 12–20% of cases and long-term nursing home care for over 50% of those who survive.

Men fare even worse than women after a hip fracture: a woman’s risk of death doubles, a man’s risk more than triples. For virtually everyone who suffers an osteoporotic hip fracture, life never returns to “normal.”

This is something you definitely want to prevent, and fortunately you can, but not by relying on the patent medicines (also called “pharmaceuticals” and/or “drugs”) prescribed to prevent osteoporosis.

From PART 2: WHY CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE IS NOT THE ANSWER FOR STRONG BONES

Chapter 2: The Patent Medicines Prescribed to Prevent Osteoporosis Should Be Your Last Choice for Healthy Bones

It’s true, as Sally Field emphasizes in her TV ads for BonivaR, that you have only one body. It’s not true that BonivaR or the other bisphosphonate patent medicines commonly prescribed to prevent osteoporosis offer the best way to take care of it!

The Patent Medicines Prescribed for Osteoporosis, the Bisphosphonates (e.g., Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva, Reclast), Have Very Nasty Side Effects

Although prescribed to 30 million Americans each year, the bisphosphonate patent medicines (the oral forms, including Fosamax Boniva, Actonel, and the latest additions to the bisphosphonate arsenal, the once yearly IVadministered patent medicines Reclast and Aclasta), are well known to be dangerous.

An FDA alert, issued January 2008, warned physicians that all bisphosphonate patent medicines may cause “severe and sometimes incapacitating bone, joint, and/or muscle (musculoskeletal) pain . . . [which] may occur within days, months, or years” after starting the medication, and in some patients, may not resolve even after discontinuing the patent medicine.

Even more alarming, these patent medicines have now been conclusively linked to a number of other serious adverse side effects including osteonecrosis of the jaw (jaw bone death, osteo = bone, necrosis = death), atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat), and increased risk of bone fragility leading to bone fracture—yes, that’s right, an increased risk of bone fracture from the very patent medicines prescribed to prevent it!

Bisphosphonates Don’t Build Healthy, New Bone—They Cause Retention of Old, Brittle Bone

The bisphosphonate patent medicines suppress the activity of osteoclasts, the body’s specialized cells whose job it is to remove worn out, injured, or otherwise damaged bone. This is a task that must be taken care of before such weakened bone can be replaced with new strong bone.

Osteoclasts are the first phase of the bone renewal process. They take out the bone “trash” to make room for new bone. If osteoclasts are prevented from doing this necessary job—which they very effectively are by bisphosphonates, which work by literally poisoning osteoclasts—damaged bone is left in place rather than cleared out, so no room is made for new bone to be laid down. Eventually, the amount of unhealthy, compromised bone tissue accumulates to the point that bones become very fragile, and any trauma or insult heals poorly, if at all.

The bisphosphonates don’t just inhibit, they virtually crush all new bone formation. Researchers at the University of Texas performed bone biopsies on nine women who had been taking Fosamax for 3 to 8 years, but had nevertheless suffered non-spinal fractures (in the lower back, ribs, hip, or femur) while performing normal daily activities (walking, standing, turning around). New bone formation in these women was nearly a hundred times lower than that normally

seen in postmenopausal women.

From PART 4: HOW TO HAVE STRONG BONES FOR LIFE

Chapter 7: Strong Bones for Life, Naturally

What Your Bones Really Need to Stay Strong

As you now know, bone is dynamic, living tissue that is constantly being broken down and rebuilt, regardless of one’s age or sex. Until recently, not getting enough calcium and women’s postmenopausal drop in estrogen were singled out as the only issues. Today, vitamin D’s importance for bone health is once again being recognized.

It’s true that calcium, vitamin D, and estrogen play key roles in preventing osteoporosis, but maintaining healthy bones throughout life requires a good deal more than simply calcium, estrogen, and vitamin D. Normal bone metabolism is a complex dance among over two dozen nutrients including the vitamins K (especially K2), B6, B12, and folate as well as vitamin D, and the minerals boron, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, manganese, copper, silicon, molybdenum, selenium—and possibly strontium—as well as calcium.

Also, while estrogen regulates the action of osteoclasts, specialized bone cells that remove dead portions of demineralized bone, progesterone is required by the osteoblasts, the bone-forming cells that pull calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous from the blood to build new bone mass.

What you need to know about each of these factors essential for building and maintaining healthy bones is discussed below.