Diet for Osteopenia  or Osteoporosis

Your diet for Osteopenia is REALLY important. Nutrition, along with weight bearing exercise and supplements are the three keys to reversing bone loss. Diet is a really important factor.

How can your daily food and drink affect Osteopenia or Osteoporosis? Our bodies need balance (homeostasis). If you eat a  meals with lots of acidic foods, your body will need to use your stores of alkalinity to keep your body chemistry in balance. Alkalinity is stored in the calcium of your bones and teeth.  So as your body tries to return to balance, it removes alkaline ( from bone or teeth) to balance out the extra acid you have. That is why an acidic diet leads to bone loss.

Recently a number of authors have claimed that the rise in Osteopenia and Osteoporosis is a direct result of the changes in t diet in the developed world over the past 75 years. We now eat a lot of meat, fish, grains, nuts and soft drinks. There was a time when people ate a more alkaline diet (vegetables, especially green leafy ones,fruits and dairy products).

Some researchers say that our acidic diet means our bodies need to leach calcium from its storehouse in our bones and teeth so as to buffer the acidic state caused by o diet.  These researchers often point to countries where people still eat a more alkaline diet. Those countries do not have the number of cases of Osteopenia and Osteoporosis that we do.

So if you want to reverse bone loss, pay attention to the Diet for Osteopenia . Why spend time and money on drugs, supplements and gyms if your time at the dinner table or at the fast food shop is undermining your bone building treatment plan?

Here is a book on this topic that you may find helpful:

Frequently asked Questions: Diet for Osteopenia , Osteoporosis

• How can I tell if my body is 'acid' or 'alkaline'?   This is not difficult. Most health food stores and/or pharmacies sell something called stock PH paper.      You want to buy: "narrow range pH paper measuring pH 4.5 to 7.5 or pH 4.5 to 8.5." You can use  these ph strips to measure your alkaline/acid balance.                                
  
• Here's how: Swallow your saliva and then gather a bit more of it and swallow that too. Now insert a ph strip into your mouth so your remaining saliva touches it. Remove the strip and watch it turn color. A color of blue indicates a healthy alkaline ph of 7.4, If the strip does not turn blue, use the color chart that comes with the ph strips to see what your ph is.
  
• Remember, a ph lower than 7.0 is acid and your body will need to counteract that acid state by pulling calcium from your bones or teeth.
  
• If your daily food choices are making your body acidic, and you have Osteopenia or Osteoporosis, you might consider making some changes in your diet. Add 'alkaline foods' and cut back on the 'acidic foods'. (see the list of foods given above) Keep some of these pH strips to measure acid/alkaline balance in your medicine chest, right beside your thermometer. Check your ph on a regular basis - until you find that your Diet for Osteopenia is paying off in a more alkaline body.(NOTE: The best time to do this is in the morning before you eat or drink anything.)

Read more about how your diet can affect your bones:

1. Alcohol and bone loss

2. Caffeine and Osteopenia, Osteoporosis

3  Foods  high in calcium 

4. Dieting's role in developing  Osteopenia

5. Foods known to add bone density

6. Olive oil's role in bone building