Like many people who have lived more decades than you can count on one hand, my bone density leaves something to be desired. Stated plainly, I am in the early stages of osteoporosis. The diagnosis came about three years following a DEXA scan.
Ew! Don’t tell me this! I’m just a kid.
Drink your milk, 9, and it would help if you didn’t just sit around and read all the time. Get on your feet and get moving!
I’m a much healthier eater than 9.
In all ways except one, Lily- -you don’t eat enough. Regardless of what society and so-called fashion think, being tall and skinny can lead to less than ideal health outcomes. Let’s take a look at the top five risk factors:
Age (especially post-menopausal women)
Female gender
White or Asian ethnicity
Family history of the condition
Low body weight
Oh. Well, at least I’m not old.
If you gain five or ten pounds and join 9 in chugging milk and running around the block several times a day you might have a better result than me when you are old.
But I digress. . .
Another osteoporosis risk factor is not getting enough calcium and vitamin D in your diet. My DEXA scan T scores three years ago were in the -2.5 to -2.7 range (Normal is -1 or higher; osteopenia is between -1 and -2.5; osteoporosis is -2.5 to minus the proverbial moon). Kind of bad scores, but not horribly so. I decided to take a super-powered Calcium and D supplement, plus a regimen of strength training, hoping to stabilize or even improve the score. Eighteen months later I’d built up some muscle mass but my bone density numbers had inched farther into negative territory.
Time to work with an endocrinologist and learn more about what was going on underneath. Somthing revealed through analysis of a 24-hour urine collection (which I do not recommend for entertainment): twice the normal level of calcium was passing through my body without being absorbed. There’s a pharmaceutical intervention for this but it lowers blood pressure. Since mine is already low, lowering it more would increase my fall risk/fracture risk = not remotely what we are trying to achieve! The endocrinologist told me to consume 1,800 mg of calcium daily through both food and supplements, which I’ve been doing and dutifully tracking since then. Plus continuing with strength training, and the addition of an annual bisphosphonate infusion to prevent further bone loss.
Calcium confusion: A good supplement is part of the answer, but. . .
All well and good! But one of the challenges of osteoporosis treatment is you have to wait 12 to 18 months to see the impact of whatever interventions you are doing on a follow-up DEXA scan. Mine is scheduled for November.
A year is a long time to wait, and in this interim I have learned things about calcium absorption, initiated by a conversation with a cousin about the effect of too many almonds on her body’s iron supply. Almonds contain phytic acid that reduces the amount of iron the body can absorb, which had led to negative medical consequences for her. Though her issue is cardiac and mine is bone density, I began to wonder. . .
Down the Internet rabbit hole I plummeted, to discover some very interesting things about calcium absorption of which I was not aware:
What you eat and when you eat it can affect calcium absorption. I had no idea that more than 500 mg of calcium consumed in one sitting cannot be fully absorbed. Time to stop taking the 360 mg supplement with breakfast, which, for me, generally includes yogurt. The amount of caffeine consumed daily also affects calcium absorption, with 16 ounces as a recommended daily maximum (my consumption was roughly twice that). Lots of vegetables bind calcium, with spinach, chard and sweet potatoes being particularly bad actors.
And yet, it is recommended that calcium supplements be taken with food. What food? Sourdough bread, as it happens. And so. . .
Isolating calcium supplement intake from my regular meals is my current strategy. First thing in the morning I toast up a slice of sourdough, spread it with something palatable that has less than 100 mg of calcium (and not something that involves those darn calcium-binding tree nuts!). I give the calcium a 1-hour head start before I have the recommended maximum amount of coffee (so hard to wait!) and then, about an hour later, have my usual breakfast. I take the second dose of calcium with a “legal” snack at 4 or 5 P and wait an hour or two before eating dinner. Isolate the bastards, I say!
Calcium confusion: Using a one-person Chemex pour-over coffee maker instead of my default 2-person sized French press. . .
Hey, there are kids present!
Be that as it may, 9, for all my efforts to deal with and hopefully minimize osteoporosis, if I’m required to collect a 24-hour urine sample this year, I would really, truly, like to see a better result!
Wonderfully presented interesting info. Thanks!
You are welcome, Rebecca, and thanks for reading!
Wow, I had no idea there were so many factors affecting bone density! I wish you luck with all of it.
Thanks! It’s definitely a project. . .