When it comes to osteoporosis, no one is unfamiliar with it. This “invisible killer” has no early symptoms and is easily overlooked by people. However, with the gradual loss of bone mass in the human body, symptoms appear, and in the late stage most patients will experience pain in the joints all over the body, and even fall into fractures if they are slightly bumped. So how to prevent and treat osteoporosis? Does calcium supplementation alone really help?
Nowadays is an elderly society, when people live longer, the problem of osteoporosis becomes more and more prominent. Older women because of the decline of estrogen, older men because of the decline of metabolic level, the quality of bone begins to decline.
Hunchback is a sign of osteoporosis in the spine
Studies have found that older people not only have decreasing bone density, but their own bone structure also changes, and the decrease in bone quality and strength can easily cause serious complications, namely osteoporosis. Many elderly people, as they get older, change their height. One of the reasons for this is that the height of the vertebrae of the bones in the spine has decreased. The spontaneous osteoporosis of the vertebrae cannot support the weight of the body, plus there is a certain amount of force attached to the bones when the body moves, and when it cannot hold up, it causes people to become shorter.
The reason why elderly people hunch over so much is actually the performance of osteoporosis in the spine.
Women are prone to osteoporosis after menopause
When women reach the age of 40, estrogen begins to decline, and estrogen is closely related to bone metabolism, the decline in estrogen levels may lead to a decline in bone quality, especially after women stop menstruating, bone metabolism will produce great changes, the loss of calcium in the bones began to be very fast. The process of calcium absorption by the body is very slow, and over time, the calcium in the bones will become less and less, which is a very important issue. The same problem is found in older men. More calcium is lost and less is added, and when the balance is disturbed, it brings about osteoporosis.
High death rate of osteoporotic fracture
When it is cold, the elderly wear relatively more clothes and have difficulty moving around, which may lead to falls, or falls caused by slippery roads in rainy days. Compared with the elderly, young people have the ability to resist falling after a fall because the bone strength is there. However, the brittle bones of the elderly make them prone to fractures, so we also call osteoporotic fractures as fragility fractures. Osteoporotic fracture is actually a pathological fracture, that is, a fracture caused by an external force after the bone itself has gone wrong.
When osteoporosis causes a fracture, it increases the rate of disability and even death. For example, after a hip fracture, many complications, such as lung infections, can occur once the person has been bedridden for a long time. Although the fracture itself can cause disability at most, according to statistics, one fifth of patients die after a fracture due to complications. It is evident that prevention of osteoporosis is especially important.
1.How should I prevent osteoporosis in my daily life?
Vitamin D supplementation to help calcium absorption
Because of the difficulty of treatment, osteoporosis most importantly needs to be prevented. Prevention should be done from a young age. There are two very important aspects of osteoporosis prevention, one is vitamin D supplementation and the other is calcium absorption. Calcium supplements are needed from a young age, and even more so when you reach a certain age, to ensure that your bones have a demand for calcium. Calcium supplementation requires the help of vitamin D to help with the absorption of calcium. The supplementation is used to prevent and control the loss of bone calcium.
Enhance outdoor exercise
Another aspect of the prevention link is to enhance outdoor exercise to prevent falls by increasing muscle nerve coordination through exercise. Outdoor exercise also strengthens the bones by increasing the stress on them.
More sunshine
You can get more sunlight when you exercise outdoors. There is a component in the skin called 7-dehydrocholesterol, and 7-dehydrocholesterol only turns into vitamin D, which is produced internally by the body, after being exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun.
This combination of calcium supplementation, outdoor exercise and sun exposure can effectively prevent osteoporosis.
2.Why does osteoporosis occur even in young people?
Osteoporosis in young people is mostly secondary to osteoporosis. We usually talk about osteoporosis are primary osteoporosis, generally the physiological state of young people do not cause primary osteoporosis. The occurrence of osteoporosis in young people basically has a certain pathological basis, such as metabolic problems, or immune system problems, after long-term use of hormones, will induce the loss of bone calcium.
3, drinking bone broth is a calcium supplement misconception
Many people tend to misunderstand back pain as osteoporosis, then a lot of calcium, drink bone broth and eat calcium tablets, is this useful?
Calcium supplementation should be done smartly, according to your own situation and under the guidance of a doctor. Many people eat a lot of calcium tablets because of their own intestinal problems, but not much calcium is absorbed, so they will also need some other drugs to assist the absorption of calcium, such as vitamin D.
There is also a problem that many things are not calcium, the Chinese people are mistaken that what to eat to make up for what, often drink bone broth, but there is a lot of fat in the bone broth, drink in not only did not make up for calcium, but also cause many other problems.