Osteoporosis

[saysfaa]

This thread is to help anyone interested in bone health. Please share and discuss anything that might be helpful.

 

[saysfaa]

this website has some nice rules of thumb - like if your shadow is shorter than you are tall, then the sun is high enough to make vit D. Or check a weather app for UV index over 3.

Notes from several websites about how much sun exposure for enough Vitamin D, and assuming healthy liver and kidneys (needs both as opposed to one or the other)
Relevant factors

• Darker skin; absorbs the less sunlight (maybe 1/6 as much)
• Age; Older people create Vitamin D less effectively (<70 years)
• Time of day. We are most efficient at making Vit D at noon. This sourcefound noon is also safer than later in the afternoon as far as dangerous skin cancers. - the similar articles look interesting, too.
• % of skin exposed - 25% of skin exposed in summer took 10 min to get a day's worth of sunlight vs 10% of skin exposed in winter took 2 hours.
• Latitude - 3 min in Miami =23 min in Boston (25% of skin exposed, noon, skin dark enough to tan well but light enough to still burn).
  - another source says north of 37 degrees the sun never gets high enough in the sky for UVB rays to penetrate the atmosphere. - but 13 min in the UK is enough and 30 min in Oslo. Oh. N of 34 or so has a part of winter when we can't make vit D
• Sunscreen - spf of 8 is enough to block, otherwise thickness of the layer and whether all exposed skin is covered matter
• Shade - still get some from scattered UVB rays
• Obesity - vit D is stored in fat so excess fat can affect something - that doesn't seem right and isn't a very solid source but may be worth a rabbit trail.
• "little and often" protects against skin cancer and sunburn. [maybe. At least some Dermatologists say never get vit D from the sun - take it via food and supplements. I tend toward sunshine is better - and probably does other things. One possible other thing is manage cholesterol better since that is used to make vit D. Or it might not; it seems unlikely enough cholesterol is used to make much difference.
• It doesn't have to be a daily dose. The fat soluble part allows uneven intake/production - sometime before next winter, look up how uneven is workable
• how clear the sky is matters - cloud cover and pollution matter

Vit D does much more than affect calcium and bones [I don't care much right now]
Vit D is found naturally only in a few foods -including fatty fish and mushrooms [all mushrooms or which???]. And egg yolks. It is fortified into most milk products.

"You never have to worry about making too much vitamin D from the sun because your body self-regulates by stopping production when it has reached its limit." [really? go down this rabbit trail]

 

[saysfaa]

https://discernreport.com/why-the-new-york-times-advises-complete-avoidance-of-sunshine/

I would prefer a more positive title but the info on the advantages of sun exposure, how to do it safely, and the risks of avoiding the sun are well worth the read.

I avoided the sun pretty much entirely for many years. I think it was a mistake.

 

[Pollo Blanco]

I stopped automatically salting my food in college. The college food service food was plenty salty, to me. I still rarely salt my food, rice being one exception.

A friend of mine uses so much salt... before even tasting anything. (shudder)

I Always thought that the food service had enough salt in the foods.
After reading Dr Brownstien's book on iodine, I purchased the book on salt.
I can remember as a kid that the neighbors bought sea salt at the Co-op and I preferred it to processed table salt.

Just a guesstimate, but I am pretty sure that I have ten types of salt in my house.

But anyway, I just let my pallat determine how much salt I eat, and I know that it varies.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ssify-your-style.1586587/page-3#post-26990699

 

[saysfaa]

Good news.
The article above included the SSRI class of medicine. I took one of them for several months before figuring out my depression was largely SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and solved by getting enough blue light in the morning. Sunshine did it or light from a broad spectrum light bulb. Anyway, I don't think the dr told me anything about possible affects of SSRIs on bones. It makes sense because serotonin does so many things in the body as well as in the brain.

That led me consider what I knew about Dr Brownstein (Center for Wholistic Medicine, West Bloomfield). He is an MD who didn't like treating only the symptoms of his patients - often the treatment caused worse problems as well as not addressing the cause of the symptoms. That is what he found in mainstream medicine. He wanted to find the cause of the symptoms.

In looking for what Dr. Brownstein said publicly about osteoporosis, I got sidetracked by this website
https://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-reversal-program/
that seems to take a similar approach.

She, and several of the people who commented, said they had reversal - not just slowing of the progression.

A lot of the dangling threads are resonating with a lot of things I already knew and/or believe. I'm not ready to buy the program but I think I can find at least some of the information she found. If enough of it checks out, I will strongly consider buying the program to get a faster start and to lower the risk of missing something.

 

[saysfaa]

• https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/osteoporosis/exercises-for-osteoporosis
• https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/effective-exercises-for-osteoporosis

In all strength building excercises - go slow, especially when returning to the start position (from my classes)

This source says:
"While many forms of excercise will assist falls prevention, only a certain type of exercise improves bone mass. ...even walking and jogging provide an insufficient stimulus. Only heavy lifting and impact training will increase bone mass - activities previously thought to be unsafe for osteoporotic bone. In fact, we have recently shown in the LIFTMOR trials at Griffith University (Gold Coast, Australia) that not only does high intensity resistance and impact training improve bone mass, muscle strength and balance in postmenopausal women and men with low bone mass, it is safe when properly supervised. This program has been rolled out into a 'real world' health service targeting osteoporosis with outcomes equal to that observed in the LIFTMOR trials
...
Exercise is rarely harmful for bones, but if diagnosed with low bone mass you should avoid deep forward flexion of the spine, particularly when lifting (e.g. lifting heavy gardening equipment, grandchildren, shopping bags, or even changing the bed). Heavy lifting per se is not of concern if performed with mindfulness and correct technique under supervision, but we often dispense with good technique outside of the gym. Sudden loading, particularly twisting motions, may also put an osteoporotic spine at risk of fracture....
What would having osteoporosis limit me from doing? Aside from the movements described above, nothing! Stay active."

This source says in the section "A Misnomer of Muscular Strength: Understanding Mind Over Mass"
"... Like many of you, I once thought physical strength was determined solely from muscular size or mass without giving thought to the neural aspects that contribute to purposeful force development. It was not until I started to study neuromuscular physiology, as a graduate student, that I began to learn about the various mechanisms that lie within the muscle and in the nervous system. And it was not until I became a postdoctoral research fellow that I began to dive into cellular neuroscience and its role in volitional force capabilities. ... To this point, my present research agenda is to determine how the intrinsic properties of various types of motoneurons contribute to the loss of strength following limb-disuse viaimmobilization...."

A Physical Therapist once told us strengthening starts with teaching the nerves. Expect there to be no noticeable improvement for a long time. I think of it like vegetable plants grow roots first - that is why they seem to not grow forever - then take off.

 

[saysfaa]

Fyi, if you get a "screening" and they find what they are screening for then it becomes a "diagnostic" instead of a screening. Which means you pay for it because only screenings are covered.

Any screening, not just bone density.
When I went in when it was originally scheduled (last Jan or first week of Feb.) there was an estimated amount for my share. I thought screenings were covered and this was a screening. So I called the insurance company who agreed. The rep told me no charge and that he put that in the notes. That took longer than my appointment time, so I rescheduled and did the test in March.

And now have a bill for $350 for it (they covered about $180 of it).

After a long talk with the person at the call center I decided to try starting with what code the dr put on it. Evidently this is how it works now because the person at the doctor's office said the same thing just happened to her at a different hospital network. She spent six weeks fighting it before giving up.

I didn't think to ask if she had the same insurance so I don't know if it is just mine. I think it is probably not just mine because what an insurance company can do is pretty tightly controlled.

 

[Pollo Blanco]

According to the Salt Solution cookbook, "...When sodium intake increases, calcium excretion increases. Researchers think that your body leeches calcium from your bones to replace the calcium lost and keep your blood calcium levels stable. High-salt diets have been shown to increase calcium loss by an average of 20 to 60 milligrams of calciumlost for every 2,300 milligrams of sodium ingested."
And
"US dietary guidelines recently [book published 2011] recommended that the general population eat no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day (about 2/3 teaspoon of table salt)... Instead Americans on average consume 3,436 milligrams od sodium daily."

I missed this so far. I was cutting back on salt because I saw staying hydrated is important. That is easier without extra salt.

I lost most of my sense of smell as a freshman in college. I think I probably have eaten much more salt than even the average American because salty is one of the few things I can taste. And I liked salty even before college.

Sigh. I had no idea high salt could affect bones.

I found it looking for things my son in law can eat. He recently found out he has very little kidney function left... and it gets progressively worse. Best hope is to slow the process.

They are very frustrated. Most "low sodium" and "low potassium" "recipes" just leave the salt out of recipes designed to have it. And/or use smaller serving sizes to get the amount per serving down. Not helpful.

Dr Brownstien has a book on salt. I really enjoyed reading it, as I am a 'salt head'!
Gray Celtic sea salt is my favorite!

 

[saysfaa]

This source says the skin of eggplant promotes bone density. And has many other benefits.n

Nasunin is what provides the benefits - or one of the things that provides the benefits. The source above have a link to peer-reviewed papers about this.

We tried eggplant in the garden for the first time this year. I've never cooked with so it has been a learning experience in many ways.

We like roasted better than sautéed. Usually, I've halved them, drizzled avocado oil on the cut edges, roasted them, and then scraped the insides out to serve it because that is what the recipe says.

Tonight, we served that as they came from the oven. After I accidently ate the skin, we looked up how edible it is. Skin and seeds are very nutritious and beneficial according to many websites.

We grew Ping Tung Long variety.

 

[saysfaa]

All spring and summer, I did pretty well at getting vitamin D by exposing my arms and legs to sunlight.

I'm willing to get cold to get Vit D via sunlight but the cloud cover has consistently been too thick to allow that. Besides, the sun has to be high enough in the sky or it won't matter if the sunshine reaches the skin. If it is high enough at all at this latitude, it isn't for very long.

I knew this was coming but didn't prioritize a solution.

Broad-spectrum artificial light is one possible solution.

Taking Vit D is another.

I'm currently reading "Ulta-Processed People" by Chris Tulleken. I think he is a doctor in UK. Anyway, he mentions that "...cod liver oil was and is one of the very few edible sources of significant levels of Vit D."

Until I get to more information, I'm going to take cod liver oil.

My dad gave us a spoonful. Once. I can manage the taste, I think. But the aftertaste so many times - uggh. So I will order capsules. My professor taught it matters that cod liver oil is the fish version of what is "first press" and "cold pressed" in olive oil. Especially, not extracted via solvents. I can't remember if Norwegian cod liver oil is preferred because it is easier to find that type of extraction or if there were other reasons it is better.

I could dig out my notes to figure it out again but I have other priorities in the near future. I will just go with what I choose last time - vitamix?, vitamax?,

Cur sedd search engines who won't give different results for different key words, or even different results on later pages.

I'll dig out the records of the order from ten years ago and still take less time than figuring it out again. It isn't ideal but it is better than my alternatives. I really need a for-sure effective source of Vit D.