What is osteoporosis?
Does everyone get osteoporosis?
How do bones become weaker?
How do I prevent osteoporosis?
What vitamins are in the health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar?
What kind of calcium is in health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar?
Everyone takes calcium these days, why is osteoporosis still a problem?
I see there is a blend of vitamin K with K2 in health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar, how does it help my bones?
So Vitamin K2 helps build bones and helps prevent heart disease at the same time?
To build bones, you need Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin!
The secret of FOS fiber and how it helps boost calcium absorption.
Young girls should be targeted for osteoporosis prevention.
What is osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis means “porous bone” and is a disease in which bones become fragile. This leads to an increased susceptibility to fractures, especially of the hip, spine and wrist. (1) A combination of genetic, dietary, hormonal, age-related, and lifestyle factors all contribute to this condition. (2)
The National Osteoporosis Foundation tells us osteoporosis is a major health threat and calls osteoporosis the “silent disease” because bone loss occurs without symptoms. “People may not even know that they have osteoporosis until their bones become so weak that a sudden strain, bump or fall causes a fracture or a vertebra to collapse. Collapsed vertebra may initially be felt or seen in the form of severe back pain or loss of height...” (3)
Bone is living tissue. Bone just happens to be a harder type of tissue. Because bone is alive, it’s always changing. Your body keeps bones strong and healthy by constantly replacing old bone with new bone. Osteoporosis disrupts this process, causing your body to remove more bone than it replaces. (4)
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Does everyone get osteoporosis?
The National Institutes of Health claim that:
• Osteoporosis is the #2 worldwide health problem behind heart disease.
• In the U.S. today, 10 million individuals already have osteoporosis and 34 million more have low bone mass, placing them at increased risk for this disease.
• One out of every two women and one in four men over 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime.
• Osteoporosis can strike at any age, and has its roots in childhood. (5)
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How do bones become weaker?
Think of your skeleton as a “bones bank account.” In our “bone bank account", we deposit bone faster than we withdraw it only during our first three decades. After that, withdrawals are greater than deposits, and all we can do is try to minimize the net loss. Recommendations for daily calcium intakes were established a few years ago by the Institute of Medicine (1000-1300mg day), yet most women get half as much calcium as they need. Osteoporosis fractures are a sign of bone bankruptcy that occurs when too little bone is formed during youth, or too much is lost later, or both.
While our genes determine the potential height and strength of our skeleton, lifestyle factors, such as drinking soda and lack of exercise, can influence the amount of bone we invest in our “bone bank account” during our youth, and how much we may withdraw in later life. Osteoclasts break down bone, and osteoblasts build it. In youth, bone building prevails. Bone mass peaks by about age 30, and then bone breakdown outpaces formation”. (6)
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How do I prevent osteoporosis?
Building strong bones during childhood and adolescence can be the best line of defense against developing osteoporosis later in life. Regardless, The National Institutes of Health along with the National Osteoporosis Foundation recommend a five-step program to help prevent osteoporosis:
• Eat a balanced diet full of calcium rich foods or foods fortified with calcium like the Beautiful Bone Bar, deep green vegetables, tofu, calcium fortified soymilk.
• Get plenty of Vitamin D, the “sunshine vitamin.” 15 minutes 3 times a week.
• Regularly engage in weight-bearing exercises such as walking or jogging.
• Avoid smoking.
• Alcohol in moderation.
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What vitamins are in the health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar?
Each serving (2 squares 16.66gr.) contains 400 mg calcium (38% RDA), 22 mcg vitamin K blend with K2 (from natto, a fermented soybean- no official RDA but suggested RDA is 45mcg), 150iu vitamin D2 (from yeast), 150 iu vitamin D3 (from lanolin- 15% of RDA), 750 mg fructooligosaccharide fiber (from sugar cane fiber- 2% of RDA).
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What kind of calcium is in health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar?
Only the best! Our calcium is produced from seaweed with its trace minerals intact, such as magnesium, iodine, boron, and selenium. The seaweed is harvested from the seabed off the west coast of Ireland from mineral rich Atlantic waters. It is an excellent source of calcium for use in food, nutraceutical products and dietary supplements. Patented under US 6,346,275 and EU Patent Application 98900971-7.
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Everyone takes calcium these days, why is osteoporosis still a problem?
Calcium alone cannot build bone. (7) Vitamin D and Vitamin K2 are necessary for calcium absorption and bone formation. Natto, a fermented soybean product, offers a naturally occurring source of Vitamin K2. (8) Other helpful minerals are magnesium, boron, silicon, and strontium.
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I see there is a blend of vitamin K with K2 in health by chocolate Beautiful Bones Bar, how does it help my bones?
Studies now show that calcium is attracted to artery walls, instead of bones, unless it has its uptake helpers Vitamin D and Vitamin K2. By far the most available source of Vitamin K2 is natto, from a traditional Japanese food, fermented soybeans. (9) Since natto is not a typical American food source, we have added Vitamin K2 derived from Japanese natto to the Beautiful Bones Bar.
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So Vitamin K2 helps build bones and helps prevent heart disease at the same time?
The benefits of vitamin K2 go beyond bone health alone. The National Institutes of Health claim that atherosclerosis (or hardening of the arteries) is a leading health problem. Further, this hardening of the arteries leads to heart attacks and strokes, two of America’s biggest health threats. (10) Vitamin K2 may play a preventive role in heart disease as recent research shows that Vitamin K2 stopped the formation of increased artery “hardening.” (11) Dutch research further demonstrated that this protective effect was obtained with Vitamin K2 only and not Vitamin K1. (12) So now we’ve seen that vitamin K2 is important in bone formation and keeping blood vessels from clogging up, too!
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To build bones, you need Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin!
The relationship between calcium absorption and Vitamin D is similar to that of a locked door and a key. Vitamin D is the key that unlocks the door and allows calcium to leave the intestine and enter the bloodstream for future bone absorption. (13)
Vitamin D is manufactured in the skin following direct exposure to sunlight. Usually exposing the skin to 15 minutes of sunlight three times a week is enough to satisfy the body’s Vitamin D requirement. (14).
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The secret of FOS fiber and how it helps boost calcium absorption.
FOS (fructooligosaccharide), is the fibrous part of sugar cane. It is low in calories, slightly sweet, and tremendously beneficial to the body. FOS is a fiber and a pre-biotic, which means it feeds the good bacteria in the intestines. Studies reveal that FOS may significantly increase calcium absorption up to 50% in the human digestive system. (15)
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Young girls should be targeted for osteoporosis prevention.
Efforts to prevent osteoporosis, generally considered a disease of elderly women, should actually start before puberty, suggests new research into calcium supplements.
The first clinical trial to track calcium’s effects on bone density in girls aged 8-13 for as long as seven years has found that calcium supplementation significantly increased bone mass development during a critical childhood growth spurt.
The findings suggest that elevated calcium use by pre-adolescent girls is likely to help prevent fractures and osteoporosis much later in life.
The calcium-supplemented group among the 354 girls in the trial showed a faster rate of bone mass development from the beginning of the study.
By young adulthood, significant effects remained at the metacarpals in the hands, the forearm and the hip.
The average dietary calcium intake among all study participants was 830 milligrams per day. The supplemented group took in an average of an additional 670 milligrams per day. (16)
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Other Links:
• www.betterbones.com
• www.strongbones.org
• www.nof.org (National Osteoporosis Foundation)
• www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/osteoporosis.html (National Institute of Medicine)
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References
1. “Osteoporosis Overview,” National Institutes of Health Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases, National Resource Center, Bethesda, Maryland, page 1.
2. “Boning Up On Osteoporosis,” Federal Drug Administration Magazine, September 1996 Issue, Pub. No. FDA 04-1322C, page 1.
3. “Osteoporosis Overview,” National Institutes of Health Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases, National Resource Center, Bethesda, Maryland, page 3.
4. “What Is Osteoporosis?” The Alliance for Better Bone Health, www.fight-fracture.com, “What is Osteoporosis” page.
5. “Osteoporosis Overview,” National Institutes of Health Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases, National Resource Center, Bethesda, Maryland, page 1.
6. “Boning Up On Osteoporosis,” Federal Drug Administration Magazine, September 1996 Issue, Pub. No. FDA 04-1322C, page 2.
7. “Boning Up On Osteoporosis,” Federal Drug Administration Magazine, September 1996 Issue, Pub. No. FDA 04-1322C, page 5.
8. Kaneki, M, Hedges, SJ, Hosoi, T, Fujiwara, S, Lyons, A, Crean, SJ, Ishida, N, Nakagawa, M., Takechi, M., Sano, Y, Mizuno, Y, Hoshino, S, Miyao, M, Inoue, S, Horiki, K, Shiraki, M, Ouchi, Y, Orimo, H: Japanese fermented soybean food as the major determinant of the large geographic difference in circulating levels of Vitamin K2, possible implications for hip-fracture risk. Nutrition 17:315-321, 2001.
9. Kaneki, M, Hedges, SJ, Hosoi, T, Fujiwara, S, Lyons, A, Crean, SJ, Ishida, N, Nakagawa, M., Takechi, M., Sano, Y, Mizuno, Y, Hoshino, S, Miyao, M, Inoue, S, Horiki, K, Shiraki, M, Ouchi, Y, Orimo, H: Japanese fermented soybean food as the major determinant of the large geographic difference in circulating levels of Vitamin K2, possible implications for hip-fracture risk. Nutrition 17:315-321, 2001.
10. Medline Plus, US National Library of Medicine and NIH, Bethesda, Maryland.
11. Sponk, HMH, et al, Tissue-Specific utilization of menaquinone-4 results in prevention of arterial calcification in warfarin-treated rats. Thesis University Maastricht, Heernlen 2003. (Submitted)
12. Vermeer, C.: “Prevention of arterial calcification by Vitamin K2.” Intermedd, Tokyo, 2000
13. “Prevention: Calcium and Vitamin D,” National Osteoporosis Foundation, 2004, page 3.
14. The Wellness Encyclopedia of Food and Nutrition, Sheldon Margen, M.D, Rebus, New York, 1992, page 30
15. Ohta, A. 1999. The advantages of calcium supplement tablet (candy) containing fructooligosaccharides for the healthy human being. J Nutritional
Food. (2): 37-43.
16. January 2005 issues of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Nutrition.
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