advice for menopause to avoid osteoporisis

I'm not a big fan of medical treatment for the well, or pre-emptive medication. I think Dr Mercola has a thing or two to say about HRT.

As for osteoporosis, the Metro-reader's view of the body is of a passive tank that just fill with anything we put into it. Want more bone? Then eat more calcium. Well, it isn't true. Unless your diet is actually deficient in calcium, then there's very little indeed to be gained.

The skeleton functions as a reservoir for alkaline buffer. Practically any metabolic stress will create acidity and hence call upon these reserves, and in time lead to bone mineral depletion. Whether poor diet, stress, too much or too little activity, medication and recreational drugs, any stressor to the body creates an acid loading that must be buffered very rapidly to prevent a real crisis in the chemistry of tissues.

Consider this: cola has a pH of 3, the kidneys can deal with a pH of 5 at most. So cola would have to be diluted 100 times for the kidneys to get rid of it - you'd need to drink 33 litres of water to deal with a single can. To cope with this huge stress, the acidity is actually buffered by carbonate released from bone mineral. What is left is calcium that is excreted in the urine, and this is how it is lost. This is just one mechanism, there are many, but it is an important one - over a lifetime a lot of bone can be lost this way.

Because buffer systems work so well, it's very hard to measure acid-loading directly. Indirect measures, such as excreted calcium are therefore necessary. But general health is also a good indicator. Skin, digestion, breath, condition of the teeth, joints, hair, moods, energy levels, memory etc all point to how well we are dealing with endo-toxins, particularly acid.

On a practical level, there are big dietary considerations. You can look up acid and alkali-forming foods on the web - we should eat some of each, but mostly alkali.

However, any metabolic strain or imbalance will lead to an acidic strain. And an acidic strain will lead to all kinds of health problems, not necessarily just osteoporosis.

Hence the message as usual is to move away from a condition-centred approach to health. "Now I'm preventing heart disease, tomorrow I'll do somthing about my joints" is a very dysfunctional way to make sense of disease.

Much more useful is to look after the general health - enough rest, good nutrition (eat your greens), avoid toxicity, dehydration and stress, moderate not excessive exercise, good relationships (hugs are a basic necessity of life), don't take drugs. The role of practitioners should be to unravel patterns of dysfunction that emerge, and NOT just compensate for the problems they create. This point requires us all continually to reflect upon our approaches.

After that deal with what else comes along - if it does.

Everyone should take calcium with Vitamin D3. The society at large seems to be sadly deficient. I believe in prevention. Why wait until you are sick or diseased or infirm to do something? Then you are usually only treating the symptoms.

Hi floffle

Osteoporosis is not inevitable, so I wonder why your doc is advising HRT? Studies have shown that HRT contributes to breast cancer, so as a result docs tend to be weaning patients off it, not onto it now.

Weight bearing exercise is important in order to strengthen bones - actual weights, walking, pilates, swimming etc ...

Flexibility is also important, so yoga might be something you might find useful.

Nettles contain many trace elements that your bones need to remain flexible, rather than brittle. You can get it in tea bags now, so you don't have to pick your own!

Vit D, of course - which you can get from sunshine, fish oils, supplements, marge etc. Not personally keen on marge.

Calcium, too, is important, but you're better getting it from dietary sources rather than supplements: green leafy veg, dairy (preferably organic)

Try not to worry - menopause isn't the end of the world and with some small lifestyle and diet changes, you should sail through it.

Fx

I've been post menopausal for several years. I am chemically sensitive, so I did not want to take drugs to assist going through the change or thereafter. The adrenal gland will kick in about two years after the menses cease, to produce estrogen hormones. If a woman does not take hormone replacement therapy. Taking the drugs prevents the body from making proper adjustments. I was very aware of the change in my body which took place approximately two years after I was officially post menopausal. I could feel a nice difference, that dry feeling went away.

We have to remember that the pharmaceutical industry wants people to be on life time therapies because that represents big money for the industry. Curing illness does not represent much profit for the industry. Thus, they push a lot of drugs which are unnecessary.

We can keep ourselves healthy with diet and exercise. To prevent osteoporosis, we need to practice weight bearing exercise. To prevent heart problems we need to practice cardiovascular exercise. A light upper body workout with five pound dumbbells is weight bearing exercise, plus it increases circulatory flow. Sometimes I work with my dumbbells, more often I get my weight bearing exercise in the garden.

The posters here have given very good advice regarding Vit. D and calcium, as well as information regarding substances which rob the body of calcium. We do have to make adjustments as we age, but the adjustments are not difficult to accomplish.

Dogwoman

Can you explain what happens after two years when menses stop? Not sure I understand or have heard of this and also interested in the dry feeling stopping? Are you saying that things "improved" for you.

Bioidentical hormones are becoming more popular now that women are demanding them from their doctors, so many doctors have become more knowledgeable about the differences between synthetics, proven by Big Pharma's own research to have dangerous side effects, and bioidenticals, which the body recognizes as being its "own" hormones. No problems that I have heard of beyond doctors not knowing how to balance hormones effectively. Generally you take both progesterone and estradiol together but only blood tests over a period of two or three months can give the doctor the information she needs to prescribe a correct dose. Then you still have to listen to your body and also have annual blood tests.

Dogwoman

Can you explain what happens after two years when menses stop? Not sure I understand or have heard of this and also interested in the dry feeling stopping? Are you saying that things "improved" for you.

Apologies for jumping in here, janet, Dogwoman appears to be out of touch at the moment - but, yes, after a while the adrenals take over from the ovaries. Didn't experience dryness, myself, but believe others do ... after those couple of years, the body finds balance. Menopause is just as natural as puberty, after all, just the opposite side of the life cycle ...

Fx

Thanks for that - guess it gives us all some hope that things eventually balance out!