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Get the Background Information on Osteopenia and Osteoporosis
by: Pamela Free
A diagnosis of osteopenia means that your bones are getting thinner, weaker, and less dense. It’s time to find an osteopenia treatment or your next stop will be osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis means that your bone density is dangerously weak and there is an increasing possibility of fracture. One out of two women and one in eight men over age 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime.

It’s the fractures that are dangerous. Hip fractures are the ones that often lead to death because you need lengthy bed rest to recover. Lying down for long stretches of time will encourage more weakness, strokes and pneumonia.

So it’s not actually the fracture that kills you. But it will immobilize you and,if you survive, you have a much greater chance of having another fracture within a year.
Part of this is the fear factor. When our bones have betrayed us we have less confidence in our movement.

Osteoporosis is called the Silent Killer because it usually doesn’t hurt to have weaker bones. It's not until the doctor orders a bone density test of some kind that you find out you are losing bone. The other way to find out is to measure your height. As your spine loses substance you will get shorter.

Up until recently there was no osteoporosis treatment offered. It was considered a natural effect of aging. Then the drug companies introduced the bi-phosphonate drugs.

Since then, fortunately, other natural solutions were found and they are the subject of my other articles in this series.

Bone Density Tests and What They Reveal

Bone Mineral Density (BMD) tests are used to assess bone density. Results are defined as a T-score, with normal being between 2.5 and minus 1.0, osteopenia between minus 1.0 and minus 2.5, and osteoporosis lower than minus 2.5.

The two most common tests of bone density are DXA at your hip or spine and QUS at your ankle.

Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). This is the most accurate test available, it can detect even a 1 percent change in bone density. It's most often used to measure your bone density at your hip or spine. This test involves a small amount of radiation.

QUS test - instead of radiation, this test estimates bone density using ultrasound measurements. After placing your bare foot on the machine, high-frequency sound waves are transmitted through your heel. It is an inexpensive test, often found in drug stores, and will give you a beginning score to know if you have a problem or not.

Bone density testing is recommended if:

1. You're a woman, age 65 or older

2. You're 60 and at increased risk of osteoporosis

3. You're a postmenopausal woman who has recently fractured a bone

4. You're a younger postmenopausal woman with other risk factors for osteoporosis

The bad thing about the bone density tests is that they test density and not flexibility. When we have too much calcium in our bones they are dense but brittle and we have more fractures. No-one has yet figured out a way to test the flexibility of bone, so the experts don’t say much about it. But that is why the studies can’t prove that taking more calcium actually lowers fracture rate. Read the calcium/magnesium article for more on this topic.

Risk Factors

Your risk of osteoporosis increases if you're a woman and you're white or Asian. Other factors also increase your risk, including:

A history of falls or bone fractures as an adult
Family history of osteoporosis, especially your mother
Smoking
Early onset of menopause
Alcoholism
Low calcium and vitamin D intake
Low body weight or weight loss
Not enough physical activity
Late onset of first period
Caffeine intake
Muscle weakness
Low estrogen levels

How Living Bone Is Created

The way bone-building works is that our bones are living structures with osteoblasts busy building bone, and osteoclasts just as busy tearing down the old so there is room for the new. Up until the age of thirty five or so there is a balance. As we get older that balance is disrupted. Osteoporosis occurs when bone is broken down faster than it is rebuilt. The reason why greater loss occurs after menopause is that our hormones somehow block the breakdown. That is why hormone therapy used to be recommended to help protect against osteoporosis.

Biphosphonate drugs, like Fosamax, are poisons that selectively kill off osteoclasts. So they stop the bones from tearing down the old but they don’t do anything to help build new bone. Your bones may look denser to the testing machines but they are dense with old bone that should have been cleared away. They are brittle, not flexible.

Natural Solutions

Bone changes don’t happen overnight. When you decide on an osteopenia treatment you should wait for one year and then get tested again. If there is no actual change in the numbers, this is still an improvement. If left untended your bones would get weaker every year, so no change at all is better than that. However most of the osteoporosis treatment in the following articles will produce significant improvement in bone over a five year period, or even more if you incorporate them all gradually into your life.

Since they are natural solutions, co-operating with your internal health mechanisms, they will also bring unexpected improvements in other areas, like balance, confidence, muscle strength and enjoyment of life.

About the author:
Pamela Free is a health researcher who loves to discover and
design health solutions. You can find her solutions for
osteopenia and osteoporosis at
http://weightvest4osteoporosis.com


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 How To Quit Smoking
 by: Rob Mellor

One of the most vicious diseases in today’s times is smoking. It makes a person baffle for air 3 times more than a non-smoker. It has very many repercussions on the life of the smoker and those around him. It leads to lung cancer and various heart diseases like asthma and emphysema. We should thus abhor this deadly disease and quit smoking.

Quitting is not easy

But to actually quit smoking is not easy, because it is an addiction. However there are very many ways and methods that help us to quit smoking for instance we can opt for acupuncture therapy or aromatherapy. We can also opt for non-nicotine cigarettes or go for precise prescription by a doctor.

But first and foremost we need to decide in our heart to stop smoking and should also fix a day for the same. Inform your family about your decision and seek for their help and assistance. Throw away all the cigarette packets, ashtrays and lighters. Stop buying any more cigarettes. Rather think of the more useful and better things that you can buy with the money thus saved. Ask the other family members also, who smoke, to stop smoking. Keep yourself busy. Exercise regularly and meditate occasionally. Eat healthy food.

After doing all this you may still feel severe urges to smoke. You may also actually retort back to it, but that’s no problem, just be persistent and bring back your decision on to the right track after this break, because most of the people are successful only after 2-3 attempts.

Be prepared for withdrawal symptoms

About 80% people retort back to smoking after once leaving it and only 20% successfully accomplish the task. People retort back due to many reasons. Some say they feel agitated. Others say that the aroma when someone lights up is irresistible. But most of them do so due to the fear of symptoms that appears after that last puff viz. weight gain, aggressive thinking, dry throat, fatigue, muscle cramps, constipation, dizziness, hypersensitivity to stimuli, etc. but these are all just temporary symptoms and disappear in a few days. In fact after the initial bout is over the blood pressure, heart rate, pulse arte all get back to normal. You thus need to keep your will power strong and stick to your decision for a few more days.

Some people are not able to continue with the smoke cessation programs because they say that they are costly. But this is a wrong perception because they are not costlier than the price spent for buying cigarettes. And then isn’t it more logical to spend on your health rather on a disease.

 

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