Lifestyle factors affecting bone health in men:
Bones play many roles in the body — providing structure, protecting organs, anchoring muscles, and storing calcium. While it's important to build strong and healthy bones during childhood and adolescence, you can take steps during adulthood to protect bone health, too.
Why is bone health important?
Your bones are continuously changing — new bone is made and old bone is broken down. When you're young, your body makes new bone faster than it breaks down old bone, and your bone mass increases. Most people reach their peak bone mass around age 30. After that, bone remodeling continues, but you lose slightly more bone mass than you gain.
Several factors can affect bone health such as the amount of calcium in your diet, tobacco and alcohol use, amount of physical activity, etc.
Let us try to understand the 5 lifestyle factors that affect bone health in men:
A: Physical Activity:
As we all know that a good and appropriate amount of physical activity works wonders for your health.
While strength training is important for increasing and preserving bone mass, low-impact activities like walking are also helpful since they place weight on the bone and promote balance and build muscle, both of which reduce the risk of falls and bone injuries.
But on the contrary, studies have shown that overtraining combined with poor nutrient intake can lead to poor bone health. Excessive workout can place too much stress on your body, raising cortisol levels and putting bone health at risk
How much exercise is good exercise?
Studies show that running 12-19 miles/week has a positive impact on bone health, but those who run 56 miles per week or more have even lower bone density than people who don’t exercise at all.
B: Sleep Cycles:
Good sleep, in general, has a huge impact on our overall health. Studies show that individuals who sleep 5-6 hours had lower bone mineral densities than individuals who slept 8 hours each night.
C: Tobacco and Alcohol:
Smoking puts you at risk for osteoporosis and excessive alcohol consumption compromises calcium absorption in the body which ultimately leads to poor bone health.
D: Medications:
Antidepressants, acid blockers, anti seizure and anticonvulsant medicines can cause big-time damage to your bone health.
Where psychotropic medications have been associated with increased fracture risk, acid blockers suppress stomach acid which weakens your body’s ability to break down foods and absorb key nutrients for bone health.
E: Bad Posture:
It may surprise you to know that a simple posture error can actually worsen or even cause osteoporosis.
Today’s modern culture has seen an increase in the incidence of forwarding Head Posture. As we text on our smartphones, tap on our laptops, or type on our desktop computers, we’re unconsciously leaning our heads forward. The same posture problem can occur when you lie on the couch or sit in front of the television.
As the head leans more and more forward, the resulting pain and tension cause your body to compensate with even worse posture and misalignment.
Over time, this position can become permanent.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45503/
https://chriskresser.com/the-microbiota-and-bone-health-yet-another-reason-to-protect-your-gut/
https://www.bones.nih.gov/health-info/bone/osteoporosis/conditions-behaviors/bone-smoking
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21864732/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2618262?redirect=true
