Staying On Task
Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash
Confession: I am nowhere close to being the world’s best housekeeper. A woman I highly respect once said, “Life is much too interesting to have a perfectly clean house.” Those are words I usually can live by - until company is coming! So this holiday season finds me scrambling to deal with tasks that I should have dealt with sooner.
What other things do we tend to put off until later? What about bone health? When we think about weak bones, an octogenarian in a rocking chair comes to mind. Guess what? Her bones did not weaken overnight. Peak bone mass occurs around age 30, this means our sweet little old lady has had fifty years to get to this point. For others of us, medicines that we take to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence can also cause bone loss.
According to the Mayo Clinic: “Bone is living tissue that is constantly being broken down and replaced. Osteoporosis occurs when the creation of new bone doesn't keep up with the loss of old bone.” According to the CDC, the prevalence of osteoporosis among women aged 50 and over is 19.6%, and the prevalence of low bone mass (a precursor of osteoporosis) for that group is 51.5%.
Gentlemen, don’t think you are completely off the hook; your corresponding numbers are 4.4% and 33.5%. As for my younger readers, 30-year-old me never thought about it, but bone loss does happen over time.
What’s a body to do? The good news is, like with my housecleaning, working at it a little bit at a time can help. While experts don’t agree on whether bone loss is reversible, a healthy diet and weight bearing exercise can be beneficial.
As you prepare your home for the holidays, resolving to not let the housework get away from you again, remember to stay on task to give your bones a better future.
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Please consult your physician before beginning an exercise program. Information presented here is not meant to replace advice from your health care professionals.