A recent newspaper article details how Fosamax, a common medication for osteoporosis, actually increases the risk of fracture. It is another example of where a medication designed to prevent something
actually ends up causing that exact same thing. Fosamax is supposed to help osteoporosis by slowing the activity of osteoclasts, the cells that break down bone. But what happens after years of using this drug is that the bones themselves are old and brittle. The osteoclasts are needed to keep bone healthy, and their job is to digest old bone so new bone can be laid down. This drug doesn’t do anything for osteoporosis and can increase your risk of fracture.
As we age our bodies must continue to repair and renew our tissues or we will suffer from dysfunction and disease. Our bones are one of those tissues that can either age well or become very diseased. When bones lose their mineral content the become more porous, more weakened. This is called osteoporosis – osteo meaning bone and porous meaning full of holes! Osteoporosis affects over 50 million men and women in the United States. Roughly one out of every six people in this country are suffering from significant de-mineralization of their bones.
In most cases, osteoporosis is caused by an excess of acid, or low pH, in the blood. The largest source of acidity in the blood is CO2 which is given off by our cells and expelled by our lungs when we exhale. When we exercise we create more CO2; when we rest we make less. The pH of the blood is strictly controlled and any acidity that is created must be “buffered” by alkalizing substances. Calcium carbonate is the body’s number one buffer. When acidity increases, the body uses calcium carbonate to keep the pH in a very narrow 7.35-7.45 range.
Besides CO2, the next largest source of acidity in the body comes from what we eat. Now there is a great misunderstanding about which foods are acidic and which are alkaline. The only foods that are alkaline are ones that provide the body with buffers. The foods that are acidic provide the body with acids. that is all there is to it! So while citrus fruit is acidic, it doesn’t actually create acid in the body. Once its digested, it breaks down into alkalizing molecules which are then absorbed. This adds to the body’s buffer, not the body’s acidity. In fact, it is fair to say that all organic dark, colorful leafy vegetables and fresh fruits add to our buffer system and help alkalize the body.
The foods that do not provide buffer molecules are meats, dairy, grains, alcohol, and sweets. Most Americans eat 80% or more of their food from those categories. This is the reason osteoporosis is so common. American diets are full of foods that bring acids into the body. Since there is only so much room on our plates, filling up the plate with meat, pasta, cheese, and desert leaves little room for fresh, alkalizing vegetables. This is okay once and a while, but imagine doing this day after day…for fifty years!
Eating highly acidic foods by itself doesn’t give you osteoporosis. What it does however is limit how many alkalizing buffers you are getting from your food. Since your food is not supplying the buffers necessary to keep the pH of the blood balanced, the body is forced to go mining for minerals inside its own tissues. The tissue with the most alkalizing minerals happens to be bone. There is almost no wiggle room in the blood for pH swings. Too acid or too alkaline will cause coma or death. So the body will buffer the acid at all costs!
The body is therefore forced to take out calcium and other minerals from the bone to keep the blood stable. The body never ever makes mistakes. It didn’t take out the calcium by accident. It simply dipped into the savings account to cover expenses for today. That can happen occasionally, but over time the savings account, the mineral content of bone, gets lost forever!
If you want to know what causes osteoporosis, then this is the reason: too much acidity in the body, too little calcium and other minerals being absorbed from diet, forcing the body to demineralize bone to keep the pH of the blood stable. That is all there is to most cases of osteoporosis.
At Red Mountain we have many natural health tools to stop bone loss and to help rebuild new healthy bone. To stop the bone loss, it is critical to increase the alkaline buffer systems of the body. We use high dose, high quality nutrients from GMP certified sources to enrich the supply of buffers. Patients are taken off their acidic diets and replaced with alkalizing food strategies. In order to build bone, a bone building supplement like Cal Apetite Forte is used.
Increasing calcium by itself will not fix the problem. Bone is only 13% calcium. Just taking more calcium to build more bone is like adding only flour to bake a bigger cake. You need all the other ingredients. The best source of bone building nutrition is what is called MCHC. In order to build bone, you must eat bone. MCHC is ground, dehydrated bone from animal sources that contains all the necessary nutrients to build healthy bone tissue. This is the best available supplement for bone health.
By adopting an alkalizing diet, increasing alkaline nutrition, and taking a quality bone building supplement at high dose new healthy bone can be formed. At Red Mountain Chiropractic, in addition to excellent chiropractic care, we provide strategies for dealing with the burden of chronic disease. Chronic diseases like osteoporosis are affecting hundreds of millions of Americans. There are natural solutions and healthy strategies for dealing with these diseases. Call us today to learn more about how you can benefit from the high quality care we offer at Red Mountain.
Yours in Health,
Dr. Andrew
