The most important factor is exercise and especially beginning to do so at a young age
We're obsessed with health and wellness nowadays, but bone health is something we're not really talking about. Prof Moira O'Brien, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy at TCD and founder of the Irish Osteoporosis Society, joined the Brendan O'Connor Show on RTÉ Radio 1 to discuss the issue and what we can do to prevent it. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full above).
First, the good news. "Osteoporosis is preventable and it's also treatable if you find the cause and the commonest cause is low sex hormones", explains O'Brien. "The next one is family history. If you have a family history of fractured hip or osteoporosis in your family, then there's a 70 or 80% chance that you will develop osteoporosis.
"In both males and females, if you have a lot of stress, your cortisol levels go up and they reduce the amount of sex hormones and, as a result of that, you don't absorb vitamin D. If you don't absorb vitamin D, then the small glands that control the calcium balance take the calcium from the bones. As a result of this, the bones lose their inner structure and they become fragile and they break very, very easily."
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O'Brien says exercise is key, especially at an early age. "The most important time to do exercise is between the ages of six or eight and 20. That's when 60% of the bone that you're going to have is laid down. If you don't exercise or do too much exercise, that will reduce the amount of bone that you have.
"But kids do nothing. They exercise their thumbs, but they don't walk. A lot of them don't walk. And if you're walking, you need to alter the speed. When we were young, we did PE or exercise every day, or dancing, any of these things. Studies in Canada proved that even just doing star jumps or jumping, in between classes, improved bone density."
O'Brien says it's important to vary the exercise. "The bones respond to differences in strain. If you do run very fast all the time, you don't get the same as if you'd run for five minutes, slow down or go a little bit faster for a couple of seconds, then go up again. You get more benefit from it. Jumping, running and short jumps that will stimulate their bone are what we call weight-bearing."
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When it comes to diet, Vitamin D is essential and O'Brien says you can't go wrong with milk. "You need first-class proteins as well and you get that through milk or dairy products. There are so many myths about osteoporosis and foods. If you're a true vegan, then the risk is much higher that you'll develop osteoporosis.
"You need to be drinking at least a litre and a half of water a day, minimum. If you're taking a lot of strong tea, coffee, a lot of caffeine or a lot of alcohol, that dehydrates you and 2% dehydration is 20% loss of mental and physical efficiency so you're more likely to trip and fall and get urinary tract infections. If you've got urinary tract infections, you're going to be running to the loo. And if you're running to the loo in the night and you trip and fall, you fracture your hip if you've got osteoporosis."
