Building Better Bones

It is a bonedeep change you are going into my beloved counsels Grandmother Growth. You must open to your very marrow for this transformation. No cell is to remain untouched. You are to open more than you ever dreamed you could open more than you have opened in birth or in passion. You open now to the breath of mortality as it plays the bone flute of your being. What can you do but dance to the haunting melody develop a passion for an elegant posture and a long stride

Ah yes Grandmother Growth smiles rather wantonly. It would do you well to develop a taste for dark greens tarted with vinegar and mated with garlic. These things will build strong flexible bones to support you as you become Crone.I

Did you know that your bones are always changing Every day of your life some bone cells die and some new bone cells are created. From birth until your early 30s you can easily make lots of bone cells. So long as your diet supplies the necessary nutrients you not only replace bone cells that die you have extras left over to lengthen and strengthen your bones.

Past the age of 35 new bone cells are more difficult to make. Sometimes there is a shortfall more bone cells die than you can replace. In the orthodox view this is the beginning of osteoporosis the disease of low bone mass. By the age of forty many American women have begun to lose bone mass by the age of fifty most are told they must take hormones or drugs to prevent further loss and avoid osteoporosis hip fracture and death.

Women who exercise regularly and eat calciumrich foods enter their menopausal years with better bone mass than women who sit a lot and consume calciumleaching foods including soy milk tofu coffee soda pop alcohol white flour products processed meats nutritional yeast and bran. But no matter how good your lifestyle choices bone mass usually decreases during the menopausal years.

For unknown reasons menopausal bones slow down production of new cells and seem to ignore the presence of calcium. This bonepause is generally shortlived occurring off and on for five to seven years. I noticed it in scattered episodes of falling hair breaking fingernails and the same growing pains I experienced during puberty.

I did not see it in a bone scan because I didnt have one.

The idea behind bone scans is a good one find women who are at risk of broken bones alert them to the danger and help them engage in preventative strategies. Theres only one problem bone scans dont find women who are at risk of broken bones they find women who have low bone density.

I would like to help you let go of the idea that osteoporosis is important. In the Wise Woman Tradition we focus on the patient not the problem. In the Wise Woman tradition there are no diseases and no cures for diseases. When we focus on a disease like osteoporosis we cannot see the whole woman. The more we focus on one disease even its prevention the less likely we are to nourish wholeness and health.

Focusing on osteoporosis defining it as a disease using drugs to counter it we lose sight of the fact that postmenopausal bone mass is a better indicator of breast cancer risk than broken bone risk. The twentyfive percent of postmenopausal women with the highest bone mass are twoandahalf to four times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than those with the lowest bone mass. And that hormones which maintain bone mass also adversely affect breast cancer risk. Women who take estrogen replacement often given to prevent osteoporosis even for as little as five years increase their risk of breast cancer by twenty percent if they take hormone replacement the risk increases by forty percent.

Focusing on bone mass we lose sight of the fact that a strong correlation between bone density and bone breakage has not been established according to Susan Brown director of the Osteoporosis Information Clearing House and many others. We lose sight of the fact that women who faithfully take estrogen or hormone replacement still experience bone changes and suffer spinal crush fractures.

Bonepause passes and the bones do rebuild themselves especially when supported by nourishing herbs which are exceptional sources of bonebuilding minerals and better at preventing bone breaks than supplements. The minerals in green plants seem to be ideal for keeping bones healthy. Dr. Campbell Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University has done extensive research in rural China where the lowest known fracture rates for midlife and older women were found. He says The closer people get to a diet based on plant foods and leafy vegetables the lower the rates of many diseases including osteoporosis. Women who consume lots of calciumrich plants and exercise moderately build strong flexible bones. Women who rely on hormones build bones that are massive but rigid.

Hormone replacement regimes do not increase bone cell creation they slow or suppress bone cell killers osteoclasts. There is a rebound effect bone loss jumps when the hormones are stopped. Women who take hormones for five years or more are as much as four times more likely to break a bone in the year after they stop than a woman of the same age who never took hormones. Women who build better bones with green allies and exercise nourish the bone cell creator cells osteoblasts.

Hormone or estrogen replacement taken as menopause begins and continued for the rest of your life is said to reduce postmenopausal fracture rates by 4060 percent. Frequent walks you dont even need to sweat and a diet high in calciumrich green allies at least 1500 mg daily have been shown to reduce postmenopausal fractures by 50 percent. The first is expensive and dangerous. The second inexpensive and health promoting. Its easy to see why more than eighty percent of American women just say no to hormones. It is never too late to build better bones and it is never too soon. Your best insurance for a fracturefree strongboned cronehood is to build better bones before menopause. The more exercise and calciumrich green allies you get in your younger years the less youll have to worry about as you age.

A woman has lost half of all the spongy bone spine wrist shell ever lose by the age of 50 but very little of the dense hip hand forearm bone. Attention to bone formation at every stage of life is vital there is no time when you are too old to create healthy new bone.  American MD


Osteoporosis is much less common in countries that consume the least calcium. That is an undisputed fact. T. C. Campbell PhD. Nutritional Biochemistry


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Calcium is without a doubt the most important mineral in your body. In fact calcium makes up more than half of the total mineral content of your body. Calcium is crucial to the regular beating of your heart your metabolism the functioning of your muscles the flow of impulses along your nerves the regulation of your cellular membranes the strength of your bones the health of your teeth and gums and your vital bloodclotting mechanisms. Calcium is so critical to your life that you have a gland the parathyroid that does little else than monitor blood levels of calcium and secrete hormones to ensure optimum levels of calcium at all times.

When you consume more calcium than you use you are in a positive calcium balance extra usable calcium is stored in the bones and you gain bone mass insoluble or unusable calcium may be excreted or stored in soft tissue or deposited in the joints. When you consume less calcium than you use you are in a negative calcium balance the parathyroid produces a hormone that releases calcium stores from the bones and you lose bone mass.