Osteoporosis

Did you know that your bones are actual living tissue? Your body automatically knows how to build up brand new bone & get rid of the old bone all on its own.

Osteoporosis is a disease where not enough NEW bone is formed; this is more often than not due to nutritional deficiencies & lack of weight bearing exercise.

I don't watch much T.V. these days, so I was actually quite surprised when I turned it on one day & heard Sally Field, the flying nun, say that she had *cured* her osteoporosis by taking a pill once a month. HUH! I stood there with my mouth agape & thought," what a crock!" I don't care how great medical science can be at times, there is no way that taking a pill once a month is going to cure osteoporosis. This once a month pill is strictly for consumer convenience & compliance.

Osteoporosis drugs are BIG business & manufacturers will do just about anything to get most Americans to take these. As typically happens years after a drug hits the market, we have now learned that these osteoporosis drugs are not only ineffective at strengthening bone, but they can cause more unusual fractures. Yep! There are a number of studies revealing just that. 

A bone doesn’t get its strength from its density alone.   Picture your bones like a wall in your house.  Inside that wall there are supports (2x4s) that make the wall strong.  The drywall on the outside is a covering to the wall.  Bones have a matrix of supports (2x4s) that are inside that give support.  Now taking a medication to “thicken the bone” is kind of like throwing extra drywall up on the wall to make it stronger when it would have been better to put more supports in.  This is where the bone density test fails to give an accurate diagnosis.  It strictly measures the thickness of the bone, not the strength. That support system within the bone becomes more developed & adds new calcium when stress that is placed upon that bone (weight bearing exercise). A once a month pill can hardly achieve the same results.  

How is that we have lost so much insight into the intuitive & amazing abilities our bodies have to self heal? It is very dangerous to work against nature: the innate intelligence in your body that knows how to self heal & regulate.  If we are to improve our health, we must stop treating our bodies like garbage pits.

You’ve probably heard about the benefits of taking calcium supplements to prevent osteoporosis, but think about it. If it were really that simple why would we continue to see the rates of osteoporosis increasing? It’s because it isn’t that simple. Just taking a calcium & vitamin D supplement is not the answer. Calcium & vitamin D work together, but they also work with many other nutrients and it’s the combination of all of these factors that protect our bones.

Stay tuned for my next blog entry in a few days.  I will reveal more answers to the osteoporosis riddle and what you can do to avoid osteoporosis.

~Dr. Terri