Osteoporosis Myths & How to Be Good to Your Bones: Part Two

If you have not already read Osteoporosis Myths & How to Be Good to Your Bones Part One, check it out here.  

I hope you got clarity on many of the osteoporosis myths that are rampant in our culture. Perhaps you now understand that, while exercise and excellent quality supplements, like Calcium, magnesium, other minerals, D3, K2 (M7) can help somewhat, they are not nearly enough. Furthermore, medications are not magic bullets. They may have a margin of benefit but also have their real risks. If you get nothing else, please get this: there are many layers to bone health and your lifestyle is what matters most. Hopefully, that will become much more vivid here.

As promised, in this second part, my goal is to help you cultivate a deeper understanding of the root causes of osteoporosis, which can then be a springboard to addressing them so you can be good to your bones in your everyday life. I also hope you will feel better informed to navigate medical decision-making. Of course, information is not enough. We have to take decisive action to get results. The cool thing is that the root causes of osteoporosis are also the root causes of many debilitating health issues that accelerate aging and disease, so the potential benefits here are enormous.  

So, to love your bones, you have to love all of you. Just a pill won’t do. Isn’t that wonderful news? 

I am warning you now. This is not a light read. It is written to offer you an in-depth understanding of osteoporosis in its complexity, so approach it more like a few book chapters than a “quick tips” sort of article. I like to look at health challenges from multiple angles and be exceptionally thorough, which is one of the reasons my clients experience exceptional results. However, with clients, I break it up into bite-size pieces that can be implemented over at least 12 weeks. Here, I am giving you a mother lode in only two parts, so I don’t expect you to run off and master it all on your own.

Believe me, I understand the wishful thinking that leads us humans, especially the most overwhelmed of us, to look for magic bullets. However, feeling overwhelmed is nature’s way of telling us we need nurture. Magic bullets are band-aids that will never fill this void.

Here’s the beauty of this. While it may all seem complex in some ways, underneath it lies a very simple truth: we are living in ways that don’t work with our evolutionary biology, and to heal anything we must move the needle on that. At the end of the day, health challenges are an invitation to come back to self-love, nurture, and honoring yourself as an extension of nature’s brilliance.

Only we can give ourselves what we truly need to heal and age vibrantly. We cannot control the outside world, but we have a lot more power than we may realize over our own well-being, bones, and all. So, as you read, know you don’t have to figure it all out at once. I invite you to simply commit to moving forward, keep an open mind and try to be solutions-oriented as opposed to resistance-oriented. You don’t have to do it alone. You can always ask for help.

7 Root Causes of Bone Loss & Their Solutions:

• Bone Nanostructure Inflexibility
• Activity & Movement Deficiencies (Including Sedentarism)
• Malnutrition
• Gut Issues (Malabsorption, Dysbiosis, Neurological)
• Chemical, Microbial & Emotional Stressors (Inflammation)
• Hormone Imbalances 
• Self-limiting Mindsets

I see healing much like harmonizing a symphony. You can just tune one or two instruments and the whole symphony might sound a little better. However, if you don’t get everyone playing in harmony (in this case, your cellular biology), you won’t play beautiful music… neither will your bones, or the rest of you for that matter.

In a nutshell, anything that interferes with cellular processes of any kind is going to affect your bone health. Sure, there’s having the nutritional raw material to build bones. However, the building and maintenance mechanisms are guided by extremely complex chemical processes, including digestive absorption, hormones, microbial activity, detoxification, epigenetic expression and so much more. Anything that overburdens the system by causing imbalance or inflammation will throw your biological symphony out of whack. Most mainstream solutions don’t look at it from a broad enough perspective.

To truly understand how to improve bone health, we need to zoom further in and further out to see from the micro to the macro. You absolutely do need to get the right nutritional building blocks down the hatch, but that is only part of the picture. Biology is a chemical, molecular, and, ultimately, energetic dance. You need nutrients to break down, get where they need to go, and for it all to function as harmoniously as possible so everything can do what it needs to do. You need chemical signaling to fire correctly as often as possible. This means that your organs, human cells, and microbial cells need as much support and as little interference as possible to work well.

Unfortunately, our culture has normalized beating up and junking up our instruments, then selling us the equivalent of duct tape so they hold together a while longer. As extensive as this article is, I cannot give you every detail of how to address all of the layers in this format. However, it is my hope that you will walk away with a deeper understanding of the full scope of what your body needs for true bone health, as well as the willingness to do whatever it takes to start taking consistent steps forward. I have never seen anyone “too old” to make improvements, but I have seen people whose minds are too closed to get better, and that is a problem at any age.

I’ll start with a crucial factor for bone health that I did not address in part one. It is based on a study published in 2020. I hope it will move the discourse on “bone density” in a new direction, and the sooner the better. Following that, you will see some familiar information intermingled with some crucial factors that I don’t see getting much press in the context of bone health… or being taught in most conventional medical training. These oversights are why I think people feel like they’ve “tried everything” and aren’t getting results.

1) Bone Nanostructure Inflexibility

• Poor collagen structure
• Rigid, or hardened, mineral structure
• Risk possibly increased with medications, such as Bisphosphonates

If you recall from Part One, Bone Mineral Density (BMD) is the value measured by the DEXA scan, which is the gold standard used to diagnose Osteopenia and Osteoporosis, as well as to predict fracture risk. However, you may also remember that bones are mostly made of collagen. Flexible collagen forms a matrix with more rigid minerals. This mix of strength and flex allows our bones resilience to impact. 

This 2020 Imperial College of London study explored why a person with higher bone mineral density but low bone flexibility might be more likely to suffer a fracture than a person with lower bone mineral density and higher flexibility.

In other words, flexibility in the bone nanostructure – not just bone mineral density – is crucial to reduce fracture risks.

One of the more interesting findings was that patients who had been taking bisphosphonates appeared to have a higher risk of fracture than their untreated counterparts. More studies are needed; however, the hypothesis was that “the mineral could become too stiff, causing it to break away from the collagen” at much lower forces.

“In patients who have taken bisphosphonates for a long time the mineral could become too stiff, causing it to break away from the collagen. This releases the collagen and allows it to stretch uncontrollably, which results in a fracture.”

– Dr Shaocheng Ma, Department of Mechanical Engineering

We were surprised to see that bisphosphonate users seemed to have less flexible bone nanostructures. Perhaps after a long period of treatment in some patients, there is a loss of flexibility at the nanoscale that offsets some of the strength benefits from increases in bone density. More research is needed to determine exactly why this is and how this could affect clinical practice in long-term users.   

–  Dr Richard Abel,Department of Surgery and Cancer

When it comes to bone health, adding more minerals won’t fix everything. There needs to be a balance of bouncy collagen and strong mineral integrity, but not too rigid of a mineral structure lest you risk brittle, breakable bones.

2) Activity & Movement Deficiencies (including Sedentarism)

• Too Sedentary
• Insufficient Weight Bearing Exercise
• Not Challenging Your Balance
• Not Enough Variety of Movement, Including Stretching
• Poor Circulation (Lymph and Blood)

“Weight-bearing” means any movement that makes you work your muscles and bones against gravity. It can be high or low intensity, bodyweight or external weights or resistance bands, and means different things to different people. The load-bearing pressure of muscular force stimulates bone-building osteoblast cells to produce new osteocytes, or structural bone cells.

Movement does so much more. Our cells – bone cells included – need movement to circulate blood and lymphatic fluid so that they can take in nutrients, get rid of waste, oxygenate, repair, and make energy. This is also crucial for hormone balance and to keep down inflammation, which is crucial for your symphony of bone health on a cellular level.

For optimal bone structure and function, as well as to feel more fully human, we need to move in a variety of ways as well as on uneven surfaces and in other ways that improve our balance. Look at all your joints and your spine and behold all the amazing ways your body can move! If all we do is sit, stand, walk and lie down on completely flat surfaces, we become rigid, frail, and clumsy. Like muscles, bones need a challenge for strength and flexibility.

The old school belief was that we cannot build new bone, especially later in life and especially after the hormonal changes of menopause. However, studies are showing that this is not true, such as this one by a yogi rehabilitative medicine specialist, Loren Fishman, MD, of Columbia University. He showed that a daily 12 minute, 12 pose yoga practice increased bone density in compliant participants.

No matter where you are at, there is always something you can do to improve your movement habits, and, thus, your bone health and overall health.

Start where you are and be consistent, making changes as you become more capable. This may just mean you start with just walking on level ground, then try uphill or upstairs when you can. If you are a fall risk, start on flat surfaces, such as indoors or paved surfaces, then see if you can work up to the more uneven ground, such as your yard, a park, or a trail. There are chair yoga and fitness classes. If you are in a wheelchair (and not paralyzed), this may mean Pilates or yoga in bed, wheeling yourself around, “jogging” and disco dancing in your wheelchair, then maybe adding resistance bands or weights for your arms.

If you are decently able-bodied and want to stay that way, be grateful and take full advantage. Given that a combo of weight-bearing exercises, flexibility, and a variety of movement types strengthen bones (as well as muscles, joints, and other connective tissues), yoga is an ideal practice for cultivating bone health. I used to hate PE and fitness until I found yoga. I like to call it the “gateway drug” to exercise.

Any form of dance or expressive, creative movement can supercharge your vitality. It doesn’t matter a lick if you think you’re a “good dancer.” Awkward is awesome, so get your groove on. Tai chi and Qigong are also powerful combinations of mindfulness and movement.

Hikes or nature walks on uneven surfaces, especially with challenges and obstacles, are ideal for cultivating balance and moving with more variety. Furthermore, forest bathing (walking in an intact ecosystem) is medicine for your symphony from cell to soul.

Other great options include Pilates, swimming, fitness classes that emphasize alignment and/or incorporate dance, water fitness classes, weight training, biking, sports, and, preferably, a variety so you don’t get bored!

If you have to sit a lot for work, then consider a sit-stand workstation and movement breaks. For you, it is a non-negotiable that you need to balance this out with more movement before or after work.

Whatever you do, lean into your edge to challenge yourself so your muscles quiver and you get your heart rate up. However, don’t go over your edge and injure or traumatize yourself. If you feel energized and not utterly exhausted right after physical activity, you’ll know you hit the sweet spot.

Here’s the 12 minute, 12 pose a day yoga practice that improved bone density in Dr. Fishman’s study! If you cannot get up and down off the floor try yoga in bed as well as chair yoga classes. Both can be found as live, in-person classes and on YouTube.

3) Malnutrition

• Amino Acid (Protein) Deficiency
• Mineral Deficiencies (Not Just Calcium & Magnesium)
• Inflammatory Oils, Not Enough Nourishing Fats
• Not Enough Colorful Veggies (Esp Non-starchy)
• Too many toxic, inflammatory & High Glycemic foods
• Sodas with Phosphoric Acid (Leech Minerals from Bones)
• D3 Deficiency
• K2 Deficiency

Nutrition is a huge topic and one that is riddled with confusion. So much of the way our culture sees eating is to seek short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term well-being or to go on diets where you use “willpower” to give up short-term pleasure to achieve long-term health (which usually isn’t the actual outcome anyway). I say this is nonsense!

You can have your short-term pleasure and long-term well-being, too! I love helping my clients with nutritional makeovers using my healthy hedonism approach. This means eating in a way that gives you pleasure in the short term and in the long run, yielding more total pleasure.

As I pointed out in Part One, when it comes to bone health, I see a lot of emphasis on calcium, D3, and magnesium, but little else and it’s really such a shame. We have become so high tech and yet, as a culture, we are so short-sighted that we don’t know in our bones how to nourish ourselves for long-term vitality, happiness, and pleasure.

For example, here’s an interesting connection:

It comes down to this very basic truth: Everything is interconnected. If you want strong, flexible, functional bones, you need to give your body the building blocks to support all of the metabolic mechanisms of bone health on a cellular and biochemical level, not just calcium, magnesium and D3. This means we need to invest in ecological support to meet these needs as well.

• Eat homemade meals 80-90% of the time or more. Read this article for how to shift your mindest about cooking and why you cannot afford not to.
• Make sure you are getting your nutritional needs through real, whole, organic foods connected to mineral rich soil. Read this article to learn what why organic truly matters.
• Eat a variety of colorful produce, making non-starchy veggies the base of your “food pyramid.”
• Get enough protein, which , breaks down into amino acids, the building blocks of all body chemistry and tissue building. If you don’t absorb enough amino acids, your body borrows from your own muscles and bones.
• Get collagen from animal sources, such as collagen powders and bone broth, and/ or get silica from plant foods.
• Any animal products you eat need to be wild game, 100% grass fed or pastured to not exacerbate root causes of bone loss linked to toxicity, hormone imbalances and inflammation (not to mention the ethical and environmental implications).
• Use anti-inflammatory (“unrefined” or “virgin”) cooking oils only. “Refined’ and even “expeller pressed” usually means rancid and inflammatory.
• Get enough nourishing fats and stop fearing saturated fats (a variety of fats are needed for hormones, cell membranes and tissue building). If they are unrefined, virgin or from pastured or wild game animals, they reduce, not increase, inflammation.
• Upgrade your junk foods and comfort foods to the above parameters (except you cannot avoid inflammatory oils in most packaged snacks, so get organic and reduce consumption).
• Chill out on the processed sugars and simple carbs, as they cause microbial imbalances and inflammation. Replace junk sugars with “paleo” friendly sweeteners. I am a hugs fan of raw, local honey. I like to boost sweetness with pure monk fruit drops or powder. I like baking with pureed dates. I also occasionally use coconut sugar and maple syrup. I am not a fan of erithritol and zylitol, though, as they are highly processed.

• Upgrade your self-respect by eliminating highly processed foods and fast foods. They have weird chemicals that are incompatible with our biology, hardly any nutrients, and so much wrong with them, I don’t even know where to start.
• Quit conventional sodas. The phosphoric acid leeches calcium from your bones. The sugar ones cause inflammation, insulin resistance, weight gain and microbial imbalances. The diet ones are toxic, also cause insulin resistance and weight gain, as well as are highly addictive. Both can cause appetite control problems.
• Replace gluten products with gluten free products and cow dairy with sheep and goat dairy (cow ghee okay). Both gluten and American A1 cow dairy proteins (not just lactose) are known to trigger chronic inflammation. There are scientific reasons based on immunological reactivity. “Gluten free” is not just a fad, and this has never been easier. More on why shortly…
• Reduce your exposure to nutrient depleting enzyme inhibitors found in nuts, seeds, legumes and grains. Try your best to soak and sprout them before eating them or buy them already “sprouted.” Tiny seeds like hemp and sesame are not a big deal. It’s great to soak grains like rice and quinoa as well, but also not a huge deal, so don’t stress about it. Do focus on eating soaked and “sprouted” nuts and beans, or, in some cases, just reducing or eliminating intake until your health is significantly improved.
• Go outside and get some sun without sunscreen, particularly early morning and later in the day. Just use common sense and don’t get burnt. D3 is a hormone and not a vitamin or “food,” but you need it and it’s primary source, the sun, has been unfairly demonized!

Remember Vitamin K2 from Part One? It’s the one that is needed to direct calcium and other minerals to our bones, and away from soft tissues like our kidneys and heart. You can get K2 (M7) from high-quality animal products, meaning wild game, grass-fed and pastured meats, seafood, eggs, and dairy. You can also get secondary K2 from live fermented vegetables (not pasteurized, or heat sterilized, saurkrauts).

If you are going to supplement, research shows that the M7 form is most beneficial. It can often be found combined with D3 such as in these drops by Orthomolecular Products, which can be purchased from most online supplements stores. However, if you want to take a higher dose of K2, I really like Megaquinone K2-7 by Microbiome Labs, which can be taken alongside something like these Pure Encapsulations D3 drops.

There are many forms of magnesium, and their use depends on your bowel tolerance as well as other factors. I like Magnesium Threonate if you want a cognitive boost without stool softening, such as NeuroMag by Designs for Health. I learned about Tri-magnesium by Integrative Therapeutics from a good naturopath friend and colleague, and I really like it for a good all-around general magnesium. Do you run constipated? This ozonated magnesium oxide, ladies and gentlemen, will make you poop!

There are a lot of bone builder formulas out there with calcium and a wide range of minerals, such as boron, copper, magnesium phosphorus, potassium, silica, strontium, and zinc. They often include extras like D3, K2, magnesium, and vitamins (possibly not enough). I don’t have a favorite universal formula. It really depends on the person and what else is going on. There are a bunch of Metagenics Bone Builder formulas, which are fine quality, but the formulas don’t entice me. A reader of Part One wrote to me and told me about a company called AlgaeCal that looks great; however, I have no experience with them.

I have mixed feelings about overkill formulas. Personally, I prefer simplicity and a nurturing, nourishing lifestyle. My favorite source of calcium is food – bone broth, leafy greens, sheep and goat dairy, etc. My absolute favorite source of minerals besides food is eating dirt – specifically, an Ayurvedic resin called shilajit, which has fulvic and humic acids as well as a wide array of trace minerals, including iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, potassium, manganese, silicon, sufure, iodine and more.

I feel a real energy boost when I take it. I notice taking the powder in water gives me more of a noticeable lift and, unlike caffeine, creates energy instead of stealing it from your future self. However, if you don’t want to deal with the earthy flavor I playfully describe as “smoked elephant dung” (even though it’s not really that bad and I’ve grown to like it), you can take capsules, but may not feel the effects as obviously. I’m hardcore, so I don’t mind tasting my high mineral fermented Himalayan soil resin!

4) Gut Issues (Nutrient Malabsorption, Dysbiosis, Neurology)  

• Low Stomach Acid & Weak Gastric Juices from Stress, Acid Suppressing Meds, Calcium Carbonate and chronic H. Pylori Infection
• Intestinal Permeability (aka Leaky Gut) & Inflammation from Glyphosate, Infections, Poor Quality Foods, Processed Foods, Gluten & American Cow Dairy
• SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth) from Food Poisoning, Under digested Food & Ileocecal Valve Malfunction
• Poor Microbiome Health (Infection, Overall Dysbiosis or microbial imbalance) from Prescription Antibiotics, Weak Gastric Juices, Pathogen Exposure, Oversterilization, Poor Diet, Toxins and Stress
• Impaired Migrating Motor Complex (MMC) and Poor Vagus Nerve Tone from Unresolved Trauma, Stress, Sedentarism, Microbial Imbalances, Infections and More

Gut issues can lead to chronic systemic inflammation, which throws off your cellular symphony of bone-building and maintenance. Microbial imbalances and infections, in addition to the above, can cause sugar cravings and mood disorders that kill cognitive clarity as well as motivation to make lasting changes. It just feels easier to do what requires the least effort or give up altogether.

Let’s take a quick north-to-south tour of your gut to understand the ideal scenario. The goal here for optimal bone health is to break down and absorb nutrients as well as get them where they need to go to orchestrate optimal life chemistry. We need to chew and insalivate food well, not rush or stress when we eat. We need gastric juices in the form of stomach acid, enzymes, and bile to break it all down into the correct molecular format.

We need the neurons in your digestive tract, known as your Migrating Motor Complex (MMC) to fire along nicely and we need our vagus nerve to be well toned. We need a healthy well-sealed small intestinal lining with a relatively low bacteria count to absorb nutrients.

We need a vibrant colon with healthy tissue and an abundant, diverse microbiome (microbial ecosystem). We need a balance of the right critters to make neurotransmitters like serotonin and nutrients like B vitamins, to regulate hormones, and to support the biochemistry of detoxification. All of this must regulate the water in our stool so we can poop out what we don’t need, with either constipation or diarrhea. Ideally, we rarely have gas or feel bloated and tired after meals.

Then there are auxiliary digestive organs. Here are just a few examples… We need a healthy liver, which is a magical transformer chemistry set that performs hundreds of tasks including detoxification, hormone balance, and assists digestive functions. We also need a happy pancreas to make wonderful enzymes and help regulate blood sugar and insulin sensitivity.

Then there’s the fact of the Gut-Brain-Immune axis in which there is a neurological, chemical, and microbial two-way superhighway that is in constant communication. If there’s inflammation in your gut, there’s inflammation in your brain. So, if any of that is off, you age faster, get sicker, feel less joyful and your bones certainly take a hit.

Osteoporosis medications won’t fix any of this.

• Upgrade your relationship with stress: Stress is bad news for your bones. It suppresses gastric juices, impairs gut neurology, suppresses immunity, imbalances microbes, leads to poor self-care decisions, and so much more. I have a lot of tools I teach clients to reduce life stressors and modulate the nervous system for things beyond your control. Some flavor of meditation (which does not mean stopping your thoughts) is a must for optimal health and happiness in this day and age. It can be very simple and pleasurable, no matter your current level of skepticism or self-doubt.
• Get help treating the root causes of reflux, which is usually low stomach acid and a malfunctioning Lower Esophogeal Sphincter. Other causes may be a chronic H. pylori infection (most accurately detected with a stool PCR test such as GI Map) and a hiatal hernia. Reflux is rarely caused by high stomach acid.
• Get help carefully weaning off of acid suppressing medications. Never ever quit cold turkey.
• Avoid long term use of calcium carbonate and TUMS.
• Think twice about using prescription antibiotics. They can do a lot of long term damage and just taking probiotics won’t fix it. The NIH and PubMed websites are full of studies showing the efficacy of herbal antimicrobials, which tend to spare beneficial microbes in your Microbiome.
• Avoid toxic and inflammatory substances, including glyphosate (Roundup), processed foods, junk sugars
• Consider quitting gluten, becauses it triggers the release of zonulin, a protein that damages intestinal lining in every human, leading to leaky gut, nutrient malabsorption, food sensitivities and autoimmunity. I used to think going gluten free was a BS fad, and now I’ve seen too much evidence not to take it seriously. Of course, it’s up to you!
• Consider quitting cow dairy (except grass fed ghee). Lactose as well as casein and albumin proteins found in dairy from American A1 cow herds have cross reactive proteins that can trigger chronic inflammation and autoimmunity. Sheep and goat dairy tend to be much better tolerated, though not always
• Get your gut tested and treat any findings with a well-designed herb and supplement program to support gastric juices, kill pathogens, support detox, repair your gastric lining and repopulate flora. Immune intolerance of pathogens leads to many of the underlying causes of bone loss. Examples include acid suppressing h pylori bacteria in the stomach, Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) as well as a wide array of bacteria, viruses, parasites and yeasts.
• We’ve already been over this, but move your body. Your gut neurology needs movement!

5) Chemical, Microbial & Emotional Stressors (Inflammation)

• Trauma, Emotional Stress
• Excessive alcohol consumption (doesn’t take much)
• Smoking and toxic vaping
• Toxic Chemicals in Foods, Drinks, Personal Care Products, Perfumes, Cleaning Products, Dry Cleaning, Pest Control, etc.
• Environmental Toxins (Organic: Toxic Mold & Allergens; Syntethic: Air Pollution, Contaminated Water, Heavy Metals like Mercury Fillings, Lead Pipes and Lead Paint, Workplace Exposures, Off-Gassing Building Materials, Carpet, etc)
• Infection (Viral, Bacterial, Fungal & Parasitic Overgrowth = Dysbiosis)
• Organ Overload, Malfunction (eg Kidney and Liver)
• Poor Sleep

However, inflammation is not the root cause of disease.

Lifestyle and environmental factors that cause inflammation are the root causes of disease and these, for the most part, boil down to stressors on the body that are in some way toxic. This builds up over time and leads to metabolic chaos that throws off your cellular symphony, including bone building and maintenance. This may take the form of chemical toxins, microbial (microorganism) imbalances or infections, and emotional stressors, including unresolved trauma.

Chemical toxins can be “organic,” or naturally occurring, such as toxic mold or accumulated bodily wastes. They can be synthetic, or made in a chemistry lab by humans, such as conventional agricultural chemicals, cleaners, perfumes, and personal care products.

Microbial imbalances or infections may take the form of parasites, bacteria, viruses, and yeasts. However, you are made of more microbial cells than human cells, so more important than killing pathogens is making a nice home for all the beneficial bacteria, viruses, yeasts, and other critters that keep the bad news microbes at bay. Their health is crucial for your health. When they are out of balance, this is called dysbiosis and can cause inflammation that impacts you down to the bones.

Emotional stressors are the most insidious, because, in my opinion, modern industrial society is sorely lacking in emotional intelligence and talk therapy does not clear trauma from the body. Furthermore, lifestyle habits that make us sick, including poor diets, sedentarism and lack of sleep, also create the biochemistry of overwhelm, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and apathy. Any time I work with clients, this must be addressed and it makes all the difference in a person’s ability to make changes and heal.

If I were you, I would look over the list of bullet points by this topic and see where you’re doing great and where you need upgrades.

In addition to upleveling your nutrition, I would upgrade to truly natural, non-toxic personal care products first, then your cleaning products. You can pretty much clean your whole house for pennies with baking soda, castille soap, hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, and essential oils.

Make sure your home doesn’t have indoor mold or peeling lead paint, and if you do, they need to be competently and safely remediated. Any home before 1978 has lead paint, so if it’s peeling you are breathing and eating lead dust. This happened to me and made me very sick.

Find effective help dealing with toxic burden, emotional stressors, dysbiosis, addictions, and insomnia. These are things I regularly either help clients with or point them in the right direction, so I know it can be done. If what you’re doing isn’t working, change it!

6) Hormone Imbalances

• Estrogen
• Thyroid/ Parathyroid
• Stress Hormones
• Insulin
• D3 (A Hormone, Not A Vitamin)
• (Really all of them!)
• Liver, Kidney & Microbiome Health

Estrogen hormones get some of the most press regarding osteopenia and osteoporosis because bone density famously plummets in response to the rapid hormonal changes of menopause, although some women experience bone loss before menopause. This is why Raloxifene came on the market (see Part One for mechanism and side effects). There is some research showing that phytoestrogens, which are plant-based estrogens, in foods and supplements may help reduce age-associated bone loss in women, particularly after menopause.

Estrogen Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is another avenue of interest but is controversial due to potential risks. However, while heavily disputed by conventional medicine proponents, there is research indicating that bioidentical estrogen may be both safer and more effective than their synthetic counterparts. What seems clear to me is that 1) progesterone, whose production wanes with age, is absolutely necessary to balance estrogen, and 2) synthetic progestin is dangerous while bioidentical progesterone is highly protective.

As you already learned in Part One, parathyroid hormones are crucial for regulating blood calcium and bone building. Low magnesium caused by stress, toxins, gut issues, and dietary issues is one of the multiple causes of hyperparathyroidism, triggering rapid bone loss, such as in the case of the fitness teacher in her 50’s that I shared about. Another cause, which happened to my mom, is steroid medications. She was put on a “low dose” for “just a few months,” and went from very good bone density to multiple vertebral fractures within a year. It was terrifying for her!

What about your thyroid proper? Thyroid imbalances are not said to directly “cause” osteoporosis, but they are considered secondary causes, meaning that they influence your body’s metabolism which, in turn, impedes your body’s ability to remodel bone (which I have been referring to as building and maintenance). The same is true of insulin, the hormone that regulates glucose metabolism and whose function is the greatest predictor of how well we will age. D3 is a hormone, not a vitamin, that is crucial for bone mineralization and to prevent hypoparathyroidism. Stress hormones are directly tied to chronic high insulin, inflammation, digestive function, and cellular chemistry.

In fact, your bone density is a reflection of the balance of your entire hormone symphony.

However, I cannot emphasize enough that hormone health and bone health come back down to lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle, which is the sum total of your daily thoughts, actions, and environment. It’s how you craft your day-to-day reality and how you respond to the world around you.

Your lifestyle is what creates your cellular reality, including those bones of yours. You absolutely cannot close your self-care gaps with supplements and medications. Period.

7) Self-Limiting Mindsets

• Outdated or Incomplete Information
• Group Think, FOMO
• Fear of Not Being in Control, Uncoachability
• Denial/ Self Deception
• Confused Boundaries or Standards
• Not Realizing How Precious and Deserving You Are!

One of my favorite things to say is that where there is a willingness, there is a way!

I used to think that if people had the right information, that they would use it and change, but all of us, myself included, practice beliefs, consciously or unconsciously, that get into our own way. That’s why I came to realize that I had to learn how to help people reveal limiting beliefs, see in new ways and rewire their brains through repeated inspired actions if they were to make lasting changes. Sadly, some people are so afraid of truly letting anyone in to help for fear of loss of control that they are truly uncoachable, at least until they are ready for that to change. This is why I do not work with people who are not ready to be coachable, which is one of the most debilitating barriers to health.

I have also learned that willpower always fails because we are wired for pleasure. I discovered that when we fall in love with new ways of thinking and living that feel really good, it becomes our new reality and we stick with it.

However, one concern people have that is absolutely correct is FOMO, fear of missing out. People are afraid to change because they don’t want to feel left out or miss out on things in which those around them partake. In the United States, we have the shortest life expectancy and disability-free lifespan of the most industrialized countries. According to the CDC, 6 out of 10 of us have been diagnosed with debilitating conditions. 4 out of 10 have 2 or more. And, so many are undiagnosed.

The truth is that if you change, you might miss out – on diabetes, heart disease, obesity, autoimmune disease, disabilities… Considering that if you do what most Americans do, you are most likely to share in American disease statistics, would missing out be so bad?

Are you left out and missing out, or are you opting out?

Ineffective information, groupthink and FOMO are major roadblocks to changes that could help you slow, stop or reverse bone loss. So are denial and self-deception. We are lying to ourselves and breaking our own trust when we desire well-being, yet think we can get away with eating junk, staying up late, avoiding exercise, engaging in toxic relationships, using toxic chemicals, thinking toxic thoughts, taking medications without considering the risks and then choosing magic bullets over self-nurture and support.

We need to be honest with ourselves in each of those instances that we are not holding boundaries of high standards and are, instead, actively choosing illness over well-being. We are all human and we all do it to some degree, some more destructively than others. This is not about shame and beating ourselves up. That’s just more disease-causing stress. This is about using honesty to empower ourselves by taking radical responsibility, earn back our own trust, and seeing that we have the power to forge an increasingly more delightful life path.

Our most important life decisions are our daily thoughts and actions, which are fed by underlying beliefs. Areas where we have low standards of self-care reflect poor boundaries and denial, break our trust in ourselves and keep us out of touch with how precious we each are.

CONCLUSION

A Functional Lifestyle Medicine approach to Osteoporosis is about addressing the root causes so we can restore bone remodeling function – so we can stop tearing ourselves down so much faster than we can rebuild. By combining the best of conventional medicine, integrative medicine, and innovative, pleasurable self-care strategies, we can bring greater harmony to our symphony of cells and change our tune. Hopefully, that’s music to your ears and to your bones.

My greatest hesitation in sharing so much with you is concern about implementation, in other words, closing the knowing and doing gap. A truly full-spectrum approach to healing can be overwhelming unless there’s a proven system that breaks it up into bite-size, doable action steps. That is why this kind of approach is usually most successful with a group program or a one-on-one coaching program. If any of you would be interesting in putting a small group of 5-10 people together, let me know. You can also click on the link below if you would like to learn more about one-on-one programs. Or, if you’re not sure what to do, click on the link to schedule a brief call and we can see what feels like a fit.

I would love for this information to reach as many people as possible, so if you feel called in your heart to do so, please share! I would also love you to leave comments and questions. Engaging with and serving people like you is what makes these endeavors feel fulfilling and worthwhile. 

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Not sure what is the best path forward for you? Let’s talk!

Schedule your complimentary 30-minute health strategy call. I’m here for you offering powerful solutions and uplifting support. No pressure. Just nurture. Oh, and don’t worry about where you live. I work long distance.