A significant issue we all get to face as we age is the loss of the strength of our bones.  I have written about the physiology of our bones and the nutrition necessary to support their continued strength.  The focus of that information was that our bones are primarily made of protein.  As such we need to support our bones with nutrition that supports proper protein digestion, absorption, and utilization.  Calcium is not the big issue here in spite of what the establishment has to say.  It has always been interesting and inexplicable to them why it is that across the world the people with the strongest bones also have diets with the lowest calcium ingestion.

The stimulus for this article was the release of a new study on exercise and osteoporosis last week that had some unexpected results.  More about that in a second.  Several other research results over the last year are also showing that our prevailing understanding about bone strength is lacking.  One place where this really shows up is with astronauts.  This was especially brought up recently with the return of astronaut Scott Kelly after his one year on the space station.  While he was up there, his identical twin brother was down here as a control test subject.  Once Scott was brought back to earth his genes were tested to see if any changes in gene expression had occurred while he was in space compared to those of his twin, Mark.  Amazingly some 200,000 RNA gene transcription differences were found when Scott returned.  As far as his bones were concerned, he lost 20% of his bone mass during his year in space.  That amounts to overt osteoporosis.  This has happened with many other space station astronauts and they do daily heavy exercise to try to stop this.

This is where the current understanding is lacking.  For years now science has been telling us that heavy weight-bearing exercise will prevent osteoporosis.  The astronauts had that every day and it did not work.  Modern medicine had already watered down the heavy weight- bearing exercise message with what has now been shown to be completely worthless advice – to walk regularly to prevent osteoporosis.  We have known for a long time that walking does nothing.  It is good advice for other reasons, but not bone strength.  This is an example of how logical thinking just does not work with the body.  Doctors knew that prolonged hospital bed rest speeded up osteoporosis, so they logically figured that the opposite would stop the problem.  Sorry, the body is way to complex for simple logic to be of any value.

So what does help prevent osteoporosis?  We know the nutrition piece.  You have got to have the bricks and mortar on hand to build a wall.  Now how do we get the little bone building workers (osteoblasts) to do their job?

The recent study enrolled a bunch of seniors in a jumping program for 6 months and compared their bones before and after to a matched set of seniors who just did the usual recommendation of daily walking.  The jumping seniors started with just doing 8 standing jumps twice a day.  Nothing else was different in their routine from the control group.  Over the course of the 6 months, the study participants gradually increased their daily jumps to around 50 jumps twice a day.  After 6 months the participants had their bones measured again, and they showed a 0.5 % increase in bone strength.  Half of one percent does not seem like much improvement, but compared to the control group that lost 1.5% of bone strength over the same 6 months, it is huge.

Previous studies have shown that weight training slows down bone loss significantly.  This is the tactic used on the space station.  Since weights have no weight in space, the astronauts would have to strap on strong elastic cords that would act like weights while they worked out.  Even with the simulated weight training they still lost massive amounts of bone strength.  The old understanding was that bones had to experience strain enough to cause slight flexing of the bones to stimulate the bone building cells to kick into action.  That is still probably true, but this new study indicates that the strain has to be the type that comes from impact, not steady weight induced strain.  This is precisely what the experts have been warning osteoporotic patients to avoid out of fear that the impact would cause a fracture.  The advice has been for gentle exercise that avoids any impact.  The advice results in failure to produce any beneficial results.

Obviously if your bones are so soft that they crush when you sneeze, then high impact exercise is a bad idea, even though it is what will help.  So how can we sneak up on this whole idea.  The day I read this new research I started Ellen on a simple increased impact protocol.  I had her go up on her toes and then simply drop down onto her heels.  That is as much impact as we should do with her since she has already had one spontaneously broken hip due to osteoporosis.  The trick now is to convince her to do this little exercise many times a day.  If your bones are a little stronger than hers, then you could do little jumps up and down a couple times a day.  If you only have osteopenia, then you could do larger jumps.  Regularity is a must here.  Jumping a couple times a week will do very little – you want to do this at least twice a day everyday.

The big picture here is that your body responds to surprise.  Anything it experiences regularly or constantly it will adapt to and figure out how to avoid doing as much work as possible.  That includes the work of building new bone.  Something that happens for only a minute here and there during the day is too infrequent for the body to adapt to, so it has to build up to meet this stress.  The same is true for muscle building.  Intermittent training is much more effective than continuous training.  If you lift the same size heavy boxes at work every day, you won’t get nearly as strong as you will lifting many different size boxes intermittently.

The need for greater impact can also be met mechanically with whole-body vibration.  Rapid impacts (30 per minute) that push up your body just 5 mm have been shown to increase bone mass over 3% over the course of 6 months when used for 10 minutes a day five days a week.  So if you have a whole body vibration machine available, use it.  Whole-body vibration exercise in postmenopausal osteoporosis article. 

Your body not only likes variety, it requires it.  Sameness produces adaption and degeneration.  We are meant to lift heavy things now and then, jump around now and then, move a lot in many different ways, eat a wide variety of different foods, experience difference.  Bed rest, no matter how safe and peaceful it may be, is a ticket to a slow death.  For you younger people as well, there is little difference to the body between bed rest and sitting behind a desk.  I don’t recommend anyone sit for more than an hour at a time.  You gotta move it.

Take care,

David   

 
Ellen update:    

In spite of the rain, life goes on.  Our weekly trip to Costco has been a tradition since way back when Costco was known as Price club - quite a number of years now.  We make quite a pair with me pushing Ellen as Ellen manhandles the cart through the crowds.  Watch out! Wheel chair coming through!