Tag Archive for: bones

Your BMI and Shrinkage

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I received several interesting questions regarding the loss of height and its impact on BMI: should you use your current height or your tallest height? I checked the research and found some interesting ideas, but there’s no direct answer.

While it may change slightly over time, your current height should be used to estimate BMI. You’re measuring shorter than you were when you were younger not because you’re stooping (or melting like the Wicked Witch of the West), but because the vertebrae lose bone mass and the disks between them lose fluid and get smaller. You’ve also probably lost muscle mass, but that can be regained; when bones and discs degrade, it’s not reversible as far as we know. That may mean that a person, including yours truly, has a lower target to get to normal weight for his current height.

A new theory of obesity on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: J Am Geriatr Soc. 2012. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2011.03832.x

Maintaining Bone Health

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In trying to live every day we’re alive, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the ability to move, but it’s not just about muscle. Those muscles connect to bones for the most part, and the bones must be healthy as well. One of the basic tenets of healthy bones is Wolfe’s law, which can be summarized as “function determines structure.” In everyday terms, to have healthy bones you must stress them regularly. Exercise is critical to that effort. But it’s not as simple as that.

Hormones and nutrients are also critical to bone health. Our ability to make hormones and absorb and utilize nutrients diminishes as we get older. Hormone replacement therapy has been controversial, and that’s a discussion a woman should have with her physician. In terms of nutrients, the ones critical to healthy bones are calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin K2.

Before increasing any nutrients via supplements, have a bone-density test as well as a vitamin D test. If either test has low results, then taking a combination of the nutrients mentioned earlier would help the bones when combined with exercise. Any exercise that’s weight bearing is beneficial such as walking, but not swimming, with added benefits for weight training.

Maybe the best we can do is to stop the loss of bone mass, but that will help you live better for longer. We’ll move from bones to joints on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Broken Bones and Heel Spurs

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Two questions I regularly get asked about bones: What can I do to help heal broken bones? And what can I do about heel spurs? Without question, you must see a doctor to get a diagnosis. This is something you shouldn’t self-diagnose or try to “handle” it yourself. Once you’ve done that, here’s what I would do.

For broken bones, once the bones are set and you have a cast or other immobilizing device, there are some nutrients that may help:

  • Glucosamine: 1,500 – 3,000 mg per day. Seem odd? Not . . .

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Baby Bones

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If you read the message regularly, you know I frequently mention my pretend grandson Riley. He’s 18 months old and he has one speed: fast. As a result, he occasionally falls. While sometimes he does fall hard enough to hurt himself, he doesn’t break any bones as I might if I fell that often. Why not?

Most of a baby’s bones begin as cartilage. A baby has about 300 bones at birth. As they grow, their bones begin to get solid; the cartilage cells gradually become bone cells by absorbing minerals such as calcium. Some bones fuse . . .

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Why Bones Need Stress

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Something unusual happened during a recent run: I fell. Nothing serious, just a few scrapes and a sprained wrist. It got me to thinking that I haven’t talked about bones in a long time; there are 206 of them in adults, and they have to last us our entire lifetime. This week’s messages are all about bones. I’ll approach it from a different way than you can find by doing an Internet search.

The critical thing to understand is that bone is live tissue. We tend to think of it as something solid, and it is. But . . .

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