Day 66 – No Bones About It

“All in all it was just a brick in the wall
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall”

~ Pink Floyd

191 lbs.

It really frosts my miniwheats when “experts” deluge us in advice that they present as factual when really it’s the product of “reasoning”, not research.

The food pyramid is a good example of this: eating a lot of saturated fats can cause problems, they noticed. These problems can lead to heart disease. So, they reasoned, if you don’t eat fat you won’t get heart disease.

Three decades later, with us hearing “low fat, high carbs” all the time, we’re still dropping from heart disease and obesity – faster than before. In part because in our zeal to cut out fats we avoided good fats like omega 3s.

You see how logic can break down? It’s like saying “It’s dark. It’s dark inside whales. I must be inside a whale.”

Well for years we’ve been told that calcium is the best way to ward off osteoporosis. Is this research, or “reasoning”? Let’s look at the research: a Harvard study published in 2003 looked at diet and hip fractures among 72,337 older women for 18 years. The result? “Neither milk nor a high-calcium diet appears to reduce (fracture) risk.” In 2007 the Harvard folks did an analysis of seven trials  following a total of 170,991 women for several years, and found no association between total calcium intake and hip fracture risk.

So why are we told to drink milk or take calcium supplements to keep our bones strong? In Africa and Asia they don’t do a lot of either, yet fracture rates are 50 to 70% lower than they are in the US. Most of the advanced industrial countries have the highest fracture rates, although they consume more dairy products than other countries.

Luckily a couple of experts decided to give this a good hard look. And by hard look I mean they reviewed 1,200 studies on the dietary risk factors for osteoporosis, which lead to the inevitable conclusion: medical writer Michael Castleman and Amy Lanou, Ph.D., an assistant professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina Asheville, have even less of a social life than I do.

But their research bore fruit; of the 136 trials they found that looked at the effects of dietary calcium on bone fracture risk, 2/3rds of them showed that a high calcium intake, even in those who took calcium (with vitamin D) during childhood, doesn’t reduce the number of fractures. But Mike and Amy also found that eating fruits and vegetables improved bone density, according to 85% of studies that looked at the effects of such foods.

Not that calcium is useless. It does help to build up and maintain your bones. It’s just not the end all, be all it’s been hyped to be. “Think of calcium as the bricks in a brick wall of bones,” writes Mike. “Bricks are essential, for sure, but without enough mortar–which comes in the form of about 16 other nutrients–the wall can’t hold itself up.”

So why do we have these high fracture rates? We’re on acid. Well, our diets are higher in acid than they ought to be. When you eat a lot of animal protein (poultry, fish, milk and dairy) it can make your blood more acidic. But before vegans reading this start feeling smug, you should know that eating  grains and high-glycemic foods (refined carbs) has the same effect.

When your blood is more acidic, your body tries to restore the balance by taking some of the calcium compounds stored in your bones to add alkaline material to your blood & neutralize the acid. But it’s easier for your body to take alkaline that isn’t already stored in bone, like the alkaline in fruits and vegetables, to do the same neutralization.

“It takes three servings of fruits and vegetables (which are alkaline) to neutralize the acid in just one serving of animal food (which is only the size of deck of cards), and two servings of fruits and veggies to neutralize the acid in one serving of grain” writes Christiane Northrup, MD. “Consuming dairy foods does add back calcium, but calcium from animal sources like dairy is highly acidic, so it’s like taking one step forward and two steps back.”

So if you do want strong bones, your blood needs to maintain a slightly alkaline pH level. Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables for every one serving of red meat, chicken or fish. Because you want protein to be 20-25% of your diet you can make up the difference by eating beans, nuts, and other protein rich foods that don’t contain animal protein. Or do the weekday vegetarian thing. Or both.

Warning Signs Your Bones May Be Thinning

1. You’ve had more than one fracture in the past two years, or you’ve had a fracture that seemed unusually severe for the circumstances.

2. You’re naturally thin or small-framed
(if you have small bones to begin with, you have less bone to lose. People with delicate frames often develop osteoporosis at a younger age)

3. You take prednisone or other corticosteroids to treat an autoimmune condition.
(Taking cortisone drugs over a long period of time interferes with hormone levels in a way that leaches calcium, vitamin D, and other nutrients from your bones.)

4. You’re a smoker.
(we don’t know exactly how smoking sabotages bones, but it’s clear from numerous studies that it does. Smoking has a high statistical correlation with osteoporosis)

5. You drink more than two alcoholic drinks a day.
(Alcohol is a bone-weakener; it leaches calcium, magnesium, and other minerals from your bones. The more you drink, the more likely it is that it’s happening. This affects women more than than men)

6. You’ve struggled with anorexia.
(artificially low body weight lowers hormone levels and can cause skipped periods, according to Columbia University endocrinologist Elizabeth Shane. “Anything that lowers estrogen levels interferes with bone building,” she says)

7. Your periods are irregular or infrequent
(women only – duh. Low levels of estrogen are typically responsible for missed periods or a cycle that starts and stops. Unfortunately, low estrogen contributes directly to bone loss as noted above)

8. You have a close or second-degree relative who had osteoporosis before the age of 50 or before menopause

9. You’re Caucasian or Asian, female, and over 50.
(Just one of these risk factors makes it more likely your bones are thinning. If all three are true for you, there’s a good chance your bones are at risk for fracture.)