Valerie Early R.D., L.D.N

Building strong bones, especially before the age of 30, can be the best defense against developing osteoporosis, and a healthy lifestyle can be critically important for keeping bones strong.

There are several steps you can take to prevent osteoporosis:
Osteoporosis is largely preventable for most people. Prevention of this disease is very important because, while there are treatments for osteoporosis, there is currently no cure and our goal would be to maintain or increase your bone density if possible.

Six steps to prevent osteoporosis or stop degradation:no one step alone is enough to prevent osteoporosis but all six may. They are:

• A balanced diet rich in calcium (the right forms) and vitamin D3 (vitamins and minerals)
• Weight-bearing exercise (weight lifting!)
• A healthy lifestyle with no smoking or excessive alcohol use
• Bone density testing and medications or special OTC supplements when appropriate
• Getting plenty of leafy dark green vegetables. Often, healthy vegan vegetarians have a better bone density than milk drinkers. Take Juice Plus for your “Body Insurance”.
•  Balance your hormones; especially your estradiol, estriol, progesterone and cortisol.

Calcium – Calcium is needed for the heart, muscles and nerves to function properly and for blood to clot. Inadequate calcium is thought to contribute to the development of osteoporosis. National nutrition surveys have shown that many women and young girls consume less than half the amount of calcium recommended to grow and maintain healthy bones. Depending on your age, an appropriate calcium intake falls between 800 mg and 1,200 mg a day. If you have difficulty getting enough calcium from the foods you eat, you may take a calcium supplement to make up the difference, be sure to take calcium citrate or hydroxyl appetite as your source of calcium if it’s coming from a pill and capsule. . I highly recommend the Complete Shake by NSA as another way to get 50% of your calcium through a bio-available, low calorie nutrient dense source. You can use it as your daily breakfast while getting lots of nutrition and 500 mg of calcium to start your day right!

Vitamin D – D3 acts as a hormone, not a vitamin. It’s the MOST important factor in maintaining your bone density level. Vitamin D is needed for the body to absorb calcium. Without enough vitamin D, you will be unable to absorb calcium from the foods you eat, and your body will have to take calcium from your bones. Vitamin D comes from three sources: through the skin following direct exposure to sunlight, the diet and supplementation. Research institutes since 2005 from the Mayo Clinic to research experts, such as Dr. Bruce Hollis recommend a daily intake between 800 and 2,000 IU per day without a blood test. However, the best way to assess you individualized D3 (cholecalciferol) need is to test your 25 hydroxy vitamin D3 level by blood and you may require between 1,000 IU and 50,000 IU/day. D3 NOT D2 (the prescription kind!) If you have osteopenia or osteoporosis optimal blood levels of D3 may need to be between 75-100.

Exercise – Exercise is also important to good bone health. If you exercise regularly in childhood and adolescence, you are more likely to reach your peak bone density than those who are inactive. The best exercise for your bones is weight-bearing exercise such as walking, dancing, jogging, stair-climbing, racquet sports and hiking. The very best is strength training with free weights and machines like the leg press. If you have been sedentary most of your adult life, be sure to check with your healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program.

Medications for Prevention and Treatment – Although there is no cure for osteoporosis, many medications are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for prevention and/or treatment of osteoporosis. Each of these medications slows or stops bone loss, increases bone density and reduces fracture risk. Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), alendronate and raloxifene may be prescribed to prevent osteoporosis, and BHRT, calcitonin, raloxifene and alendronate are prescribed to treat osteoporosis. There are some concerns about some of these prescription medications in regards to teeth softening that dentists have observed. Your bone density test results may look better but the bone matrix is often softer so if you have a break the fracture may be worse on these medications. Discuss these and reflux risks with your physician or health care provider.

upplements: Juice Plus and Vineyard Blend, ProBono or Ostera. Call NCB at 847-985-1200 for articles to read, to assess which extra co-factor supplements may be best or to buy them.

Bone Mineral Density Test – A Bone Mineral Density test (BMD) is the only way to diagnose osteoporosis and determine your risk for future fracture. You can’t feel your bones softening! Osteoporosis is the second leading cause of death in women! Come on, this is preventable ladies! Since osteoporosis can develop undetected for decades until a fracture occurs, early diagnosis is important. A BMD measures the density of your bones (bone mass) and is necessary to determine whether you need medication to help maintain your bone mass, prevent further bone loss and reduce fracture risk. A bone mineral density (BMD) test is a special type of test that is accurate, painless and noninvasive. A T-score of -1.0 to -2.5 is osteopenia, or the beginning of osteoporosis and -2.5 or greater is full osteoporosis.

If you have thyroid issues, had a hysterectomy, have had chemotherapy or radiation therapies or are on other medications your bones may be at risk! Don’t wait to be proactive!

So get moving and make an appointment to see Valerie Early at NCB, 847-985-1200 to promote your bone health and strength! It’s your choice. No one will take care of your body as well as you can! www.nutritionconnectionbalance.com

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Our skeleton is constantly regenerating itself. It does this by chewing up old bone with cells called “osteoclasts,” and laying down new bone with cells called “osteoblasts.” If you are calcium deficient, your body will not be able to make new bone tissue, but it can still chew up old bone tissue, and it does. This results in a net loss of bone tissue, resulting in osteoporosis. Boniva and Fosamax are classifications of drugs called “Bisphosphonates.” They work by slowing down the process by which your body eliminates old bone tissue. This allows old bone to build up in the skeleton. This increases your bone density, but after 3 years (more or less) the old bone (because it is old) becomes just as brittle as the osteoporotic bone that you had in the first place, and your risk of fracture is high again. In addition, one of the documented side effects of Boniva is jaw necrosis, which in laymans terms means – your face falls off!


That’s right – your face falls off- because your jawbone becomes dissolved by the Boniva. This is a high price to pay for only 3 years of benefit from the drug. When Boniva was approved by the FDA, the study ONLY looked at bone mineral density changes in the women taking the drug. Your bone density WILL increase from the action of the drug, but the strength of the bone will ultimately suffer. Bone strength and fracture rates were not even measured by the study that the FDA based the approval of Boniva on.


The clinical use of bisphosphonates is a perfect example of the idiocy of the pharmaceutical methodology in dealing with human illness. Instead of just trusting in the wisdom of the body and supporting its efforts, MD’s march in with synthetic drugs which aggressively co-opt the natural function of the body. Instead of just delivering a really well put together, 100% absorbable calcium supplement that has all of the co-factors that the body needs to be able to utilize the calcium, they spend millions of dollars on research to develop a drug that hinders the body’s innate self-regulating processes, and then act surprised when it stops working and creates horrific side-effects. Did I mention that they get rich in the mean time?

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Osteoporosis is the gradual thinning of bones over time – making them brittle and weak and therefore, much easier to break. Osteopenia is the very beginning of this process of bone thinning; Osteoporosis is when the thinning has become full fledged. Someone who has full fledged Osteoporosis has very weak and brittle bones, and even a simple fall on the kitchen floor can result in a broken wrist, leg, arm or hip. The main reason why the medical community is concerned about treating Osteoporosis is that when an elderly woman falls and breaks her hip, the surgery and rehab necessary to treat it are expensive and dangerous. 30% of the elderly women who have this hip surgery die from its complications. Most of the women who survive the surgery are never the same after it, the quality of their lives suffers, and the last years of their lives are rendered horrible because of it. A small percentage of women with Osteoporosis will also be bothered by back and or leg pain, and this is another reason to treat it.


Osteoporosis is much more widespread than is revealed by medical statistics because there are few outward signs of the disease in the early stages. One of the first outward signs is loss of height between your hips and neck. (If you don’t know how tall you were in early adulthood, you can estimate that height by measuring the width of your arm span, since arm span and height are nearly equal at skeletal maturity.) Subtract your arm span from your head-to-heel height to give yourself a rough indication of your height loss. Any substantial difference may be a sign of osteoporosis. Another sign is what’s called transparent skin. If you can see the edges of both the large and small veins on the back of the hand then you may have osteoporosis as this reflects a lack of collagen in the skin’s outer layers. One study of older women with osteoporosis showed that 83 percent had transparent skin while 13 percent did not.


What causes it?

Osteoporosis is not caused by a Boniva or a Fosamax deficiency! There are a number of reasons why Osteoporosis develops:


• Smoking cigarettes. The mechanism here is unclear. It may have to do with arsenic deposition in the bones (arsenic is in cigarette smoke), it may have to do with the acid-causing effects of cigarette smoke. No one is quite sure. But if you are a smoker – especially a thin, White smoker, your Osteoporosis risk increases dramatically.

• Eating meat specifically and animal products in general. A Michigan State study found that by age 65, the average woman who ate meat had lost one-third of her skeletal structure. Meanwhile, vegetarian women of comparable age had less than half the bone loss and were more active, less likely to break bones, maintained erect postures, and healed bones more quickly. The Inuit (Eskimo) have the highest osteoporosis rates in the world. In a study of 217 children, 89 adults, and 107 elderly Inuit in Alaska, researchers found that they had lower bone mineral content, onset of bone loss at an earlier age, and development of bone thinning with a greater intensity than white Americans. The scientists attributed the greater degeneration to the acidic effects of the Inuit’s high meat diet. The human body is constantly trying to strike a balance between being too acidic and being too alkaline. A healthy human body likes to be alkaline, but when we eat certain foods (meat, refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and animal products) our bodies become acidic. Because the body does not like to be acidic, it steals calcium from the bones and dumps it into the blood to make the blood alkaline again! When somebody eats acid-forming foods every day, the bones become thinner and thinner because the body is constantly stealing calcium from them to make the blood alkaline! The other side of the coin here is that if you do eat meat, it is possible to have strong and healthy bones. To accomplish this you must ingest adequate amounts of calcium and trace minerals every day. One of the reasons that the Inuit had such a high degree of osteoporosis was because there was hardly any calcium or trace minerals in their diets. Skeletons of Neanderthals have been found and forensically examined. Their bone density was perfect – and they ate a lot of meat. They also supplemented their diets with wood ash which was very high in trace minerals, thereby negating the bone destroying propensity of a diet high in animal protein.

• Not enough exercise will also help to make the bones thin. When healthy men in their 20’s and 30’s are shot up into space they start to develop Osteopenia! Why? Because there is no more gravity putting stress on their bones! Why does this matter? Well, when we walk around on the earth’s surface, each time we take a step we are putting stress on our bones, which then send a message to our brains asking it for more bone building stuff (calcium, phosphorus, etc.). Lifting weights does the same thing. When astronauts are floating around in a low gravity environment for more than a few days, their bones STOP asking the brain for help and become thin as a result. This brings up an interesting point that not many people are unaware of. Our bones are constantly renewing themselves – chewing up and getting rid of old bone and replacing it with new bone. Bone regeneration is a very dynamic process and is affected by MANY things, the most common of which are: ageing; certain diseases; lack of physical exercise; not enough calcium in the diet.

• Diseases like Rheumatoid arthritis, Cushing’s disease, and Primary Hypoparathyroidism, Thyroid disease (Hyper thyroid).

• Prednisolone or corticosteroid treatment for prolonged periods (greater than 5mg daily for 2 months. Some Cancer treatments.


All of the above circumstances will negatively affect bone integrity, thickness, and strength, but the single largest causative factor in the genesis of Osteoporosis, and the one which eclipses all the others is calcium deficiency. Osteoporosis is a calcium deficiency disease. Period. This fact was proved conclusively by extensive research done with animals in the 1970’s. If you have bone spurs, arthritis, degenerative disc disease, chronic low back pain, bad teeth, PMS, high blood pressure, kidney stones, Bell’s palsy, osteopenia, or osteoporosis – you are suffering from a calcium deficiency. If you have any of these diseases, are taking a calcium supplement , and still have the illness – then the particular calcium product you are taking is inferior. It is that simple.


In our mad rush to stave off illness we often get focused on a single nutrient, and forget about the larger picture. The body is a complex system of interconnected and inter-related parts. There are 91 essential nutrients that need to be imported into the human body each day in order for it to function properly (60 Trace minerals, 16 Vitamins, 12 Amino acids, and 3 Fatty acids). We need to have ALL of these nutrients in play in order for each of them to be effective individually. If we are suffering from osteopenia or osteoporosis and we take calcium, but ignore the other 90 nutrients, the calcium will not be absorbed nor laid down properly by the body, and the disease will persist. 1500 mg of calcium/day, plus all of the other 90 nutrients will completely eliminate osteoporosis within 12 weeks with most people.


In the treatment of osteoporosis, Glucosamine sulfate is also an important nutrient to remember. Glucosamine sulfate KCl is the matrix of the bone structure around which calcium is attached and laid down. The lack of this particular nutrient in a calcium centered osteoporosis treatment is another reason for its’ failure. If you were to take a chicken bone and immerse it into a bottle of vinegar for 4 weeks, all of the calcium in the bone will be dissolved out of it by the acid in the vinegar. What remains in the bottle will look just like a chicken bone , and it may in fact appear as if nothing has really changed in the bone at all. But if you then take the bone out of the vinegar, it is so rubbery and pliable that you can easily tie it into a knot. The rubbery material that has remained after the calcium has been dissolved away is the glucosamine matrix of the bone that the calcium binds to, giving the bone its strength. If you leave glucosamine sulfate out of your osteoporosis calcium formulation, you will get inferior results every time.

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As we know there has been a huge focus on inflammation as the real root of many of our chronic diseases. Inflammation is like a long, slow burning fire. It’s not creating a lot of damage all at once, slowly over time you start to feel the effects. Then we blame it on age, when the real issue has to do with how you have treated your body. The list of inflammatory chronic diseases includes autoimmune disorders like Rheumatoid Arthritis and lupus, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Yes, osteoporosis is another manifestation of inflammation. Where the inflammation occurs in the body may be genetic, but the genes are “turned on” by lifestyle factors. You can control your genetics! The following are factors regulate the inflammatory genes and will help put out the fire in your bones (and everywhere else).

Put the fires out in your body and in your bones by following these simple principles.


Dr Kristina Sargent is a chiropractic physician with 18 years experience. Her mission is to engage, educate and empower people to take control of their health to prevent chronic diseases and lead successful lives through serving people with alternatives to medication. Her toolbox includes personalized diet recommendations, weight loss, exercise, chiropractic care, positive thoughts, prayer and meditation, and massage therapy. Her office, Restor Healing Centre, is located in Wheaton, Il. The website is www.RestorNow.com.

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Osteoporosis or decreased bone mineral/matrix which cause weakness in bone is not as simple as not having enough minerals like calcium. The body is an amazing network of electricity, energy, & nutrients which works to keep as much balance as possible as it deals with various mental/emotional, physical and nutritional stresses. There has to be many years of compensation and build up of stress before the body to gets to a point where it has to strip the bones of calcium and other minerals. Therefore when looking at the body as a whole there are many ways of increasing the body’s ability to heal and re-balance:

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Osteoporosis Prevention – by Valerie Early, R.D, L.D.N
Alternative Care for Osteoporosis – by Dr Helen Lee, DC
Osteoporosis: Are Your Bones on Fire? – by Dr. Kristina Sargent, DC
Osteoporosis – by Peter Glidden ND
Osteoporosis: Part II – by Peter Glidden ND