Osteoporosis: Key Concepts of Nutrition for Healthy Bones

Looking for a simple way to strengthen your bones? Eat less meat and more vegetables. Diets that emphasize meat and cheese, especially aged cheese, tend to make the blood very slightly more acidic, but enough to increase the leaching of calcium out of bones. Milk and ice cream provide less calcium than cheese but interfere with bone minerals less, too. Smoked fish in excess can reduce mineral content in bone.

If you drink calcium-enriched fruit juices, choose apple over orange. The lower acidity of the apple juice and its glucose to fructose ratio are more favorable to calcium absorption than orange juice.

If you take calcium supplements, even 1500 mg of supplements (850 mg or more of elemental calcium) a day will have no effect on the amount of calcium retained in your bones if you consume more than 1,600 mg of sodium a day. If you consume no more than 200 mg of sodium a day, as little as 400 mg of elemental calcium (about 750 mg of calcium supplements) will increase the absorption of calcium into your bones. If you consume a high-salt diet, calcium supplements are a waste of time. The sodium in salt accelerates bone destruction as much as the calcium in the calcium supplements prevents it.

Zinc prevents bone fractures in men, but only if the body has adequate supplies of both copper and zinc. The bones need copper to absorb calcium, so it is important that your zinc supplement also contain copper.

You can enhance the benefits of calcium supplementation by consuming foods rich in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. These are the fatty acids found in seeds and nuts. They are particularly important if you rely on diet for calcium. Bone loss, especially in the neck, is slowed the most by these beneficial fatty acids in women who consume the least calcium, relying on diet. There are many reasons to believe that “bad” fatty acids, such as those found in margarine and baked goods, would accelerate bone loss, but this hypothesis has not been borne out in actual, clinical research.

Soy isoflavones are also helpful in stopping bone loss, but this does not mean you need a soy-based diet. Your body can only absorb an amount of isoflavones equivalent to a 1 oz (30 g) serving of tofu or soybeans a day. More soy won’t hurt, but it won’t help, either. Soy isoflavones seem to be most effective for stopping bone loss in the lumbar spine, that is, the lower back.

Recent reader questions:

Q. How does osteoporosis differ from osteomalacia?

A. Osteomalacia is more directly related to acid-base balance in the bloodstream. Certain kidney diseases cause "acid" to accumulate in the bloodstream so that it literally dissolves bone. The nutritional therapies for osteomalacia and osteoporosis are the same, except in osteomalacia supplemental taurine helps the bile salts in the gut "catch" vitamin K, which is also important to bone health.