For anyone who has been diagnosed with osteoporosis, I’m sure the first thought is usually “I must need more calcium”. Understandable, as calcium is the most abundant mineral in our bones. But many more nutrients are needed to make new bone, replace old bone, and keep what we have structurally strong. We also need to prevent nutrients that can interfere with maintaining health bone from doing just that. It’s all about balance.
Unfortunately, millions of Americans have been led to believe that the answer is to simply take one of the common osteoporosis drugs like Boniva, Evista, Actonel, or Fosamax. The problem with that is you can take one of these drugs like an ideal patient and still not gain the benefit of a “real” improvement for osteoporosis. Sadly, these drugs only improve bone by about 2% a year for a couple of years and then the benefit dwindles or ceases. The best you can expect is a “temporary” improvement in bone density, but this will be short-lived because the underlying root cause of the problem has been overlooked or ignored.
Just like every other tissue in the body, normal bone will break down and repair itself every day. These osteoporosis drugs work by artificially manipulating the normal process of bone repair, leaving unnatural bone build-up. This bone build-up is not the same as a healthy bone and it comes with some unwanted side effects and long-term problems, one being that it encourages the accumulation of heavy toxic metals like cadmium.
Cadmium will accumulate in the bone when there is not an ongoing natural process of bone regeneration, making the bone matrix, which is mostly collagen, abnormally weak. It can also end up in the kidneys causing high blood pressure and kidney disease, or in coronary blood vessels causing coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathy, or in the lungs causing emphysema.
Cadmium also has the nasty habit of kicking zinc out of the bones, which they need to maintain bone strength. Once cadmium displaces enough zinc, the bones lose strength and you have a greater potential of developing osteopenia and osteoporosis and are more susceptible to fractures. And if you have simply been advised to take more calcium as “the answer”, make sure that there is an actual need. Excess calcium can make people age faster by calcifying or hardening their brain and heart arteries.
So remember, there is a much bigger picture to osteoporosis that just calcium. We need zinc and magnesium and boron and vitamin D and many other nutrients to build, rebuild and maintain healthy bones. We also need to remind them that they need to stay strong to properly support our bodies. How do you do this? Exercise! Resistance training applies stress to the bones that makes them adapt and stay strong. That means a couch potato lifestyle is not something you want to adopt if you care about your bones! So put the pieces together and take some steps in a few areas and you’ll see your bones carry you through a long, healthy life. Literally.