Monday, March 11, 2013

Get Moving Now! - To Prevent Osteoporosis After Menopause

During the transition to menopause your most immediate concern is in finding ways to relieve the discomfort of the symptoms you're experiencing right now, such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, sleeplessness and fatigue.

Understandable. However, you should be aware that there is a "silent disease" that you could already have or be at risk of developing, without even knowing.

It's called Osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis means "porous bone" and it's a disease of the bones which causes a loss in bone density and mass, leaving the bone weak and subject to fractures. You can't feel your bones getting weaker, so quite often it takes a break to realize that you have osteoporosis.

Throughout your childhood and young adulthood, your bones are constantly being removed and rebuilt; old bone is being replaced by new bone. After the age of 30, bone loss starts to outpace bone formation. After menopause, bone loss speeds up even more due to the decline in estrogen levels in your body; in fact post menopausal women can lose up to 2% of their bone mass annually.

Osteoporosis affects over 200 million people worldwide. It's estimated that more than 10 million Americans, both men and women, have osteoporosis and 34 million more are at high risk of developing it. A staggering 50% of all women and 25% of men will suffer bone fractures related to osteoporosis at some time in their life.

Steps You Can Take Now To Prevent Osteoporosis

Although you can't control certain risk factors for developing osteoporosis like a family history of the disease, a lifetime of non-exercise, a lifelong low-calcium diet or a low body weight/height ratio, it's not too late to incorporate some changes into your lifestyle that will help to strengthen your bones and decrease your risk of fractures.

Recent studies have shown that the risk of osteoporosis is reduced in people who are active, and health experts are recommending the following 3 specific types of exercise that you can do to build bone mass and prevent osteoporosis.