bone loss

Vitamin C deficiency accelerates bone loss

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Vitamin C is well known as a powerful antioxidant and valuable weapon against cancer and other disease. But this versatile vitamin can also prevent bone loss by preventing oxidative stress that destroys bone structure.

Bone loss, known as osteoporosis, strikes older adults and can have devastating effects on mobility and quality of life. By supplementing with vitamin C, and following a healthy lifestyle to avoid toxins and other stress, you can minimize the risk of bone loss.

The stakes are high: Don’t become a victim of poor bone health

The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates that about 54 million Americans are suffering with, or at-risk of, osteoporosis and low bone mass. Osteoporosis occurs when the body loses too much bone or makes too little bone. In some cases, both scenarios are occurring simultaneously.

The result is a weakening of the bones, causing an increase in incidence of bone breakage, even from a relatively minor fall. In the most severe cases, victims of osteoporosis can break a bone simply by bumping into something around the house – or even from just sneezing. Osteoporosis is more widespread than many realize. About one in two women and as many as one in four men aged 50 and older will break a bone in because of osteoporosis.

Patients are being misguided and mistreated

There is a mountain of information about bone health and how to avoid osteoporosis. Unfortunately, nearly all of it is wrong. The most common mistake is the idea that calcium can reverse bone loss. This misconception no doubt came about because osteoporotic bone is definitely deficient in calcium. But consuming large amounts of calcium have no effect on improving the conditions of the disease.

While additional calcium in the diet may show some improvement on a bone density test, those results are deceiving. Calcium is merely improving the test results from a superficial standpoint. It is doing nothing to strengthen the bone from within and safeguard against fracture.

Is your doctor telling you the truth about poor bone health?

Osteoporosis is actually scurvy of the bones, a symptom of vitamin C deficiency. Its reversal is dependent on restoring an optimal balance of antioxidants, particularly vitamin C – which helps promote the growth of new, healthy bone. Appropriate mineral intake is also necessary for optimal function of these antioxidants within the bone.

Deficiencies in antioxidants cause oxidative stress, which affects the bone, decomposing it over time. Resolving this oxidative stress is not as simple as taking a supplement, however, since the cause of the stress should also be addressed. But vitamin C plays a key role in an overall approach to minimizing bone loss because of its incredible efficiency in relieving oxidative stress.

Good news about the power of vitamin C for bone strength

Supplementing with vitamin C has been shown to improve bone density test results with strong, structurally sound bones, as well as reduce the risk of fracture. Research has shown vitamin C plays a pivotal role within the structural matrix of the bone itself, forming and cross-linking collagen, developing other non-collagen bone matrix proteins, regulating cells that are forming collagen and cartilage in the bone, as well as differentiating stem cells into bone cells.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine were the first to demonstrate in an animal model that vitamin C actively protects against osteoporosis. Researchers there found that supplementing with vitamin C prevented bone loss in mice. Similar findings were documented in the International Journal of Experimental Pathology by researchers at Kyungpook National University in Daigu, Korea, who found that vitamin C deficiency caused failure of collagen synthesis, leading to symptoms of scurvy, including spontaneous bone fracture.

Take a comprehensive approach to avoid osteoporosis

There are a number of steps you can take for preventing and reversing osteoporosis. This comprehensive approach will address oxidative stress as well as get at the cause of that stress:

1. Eradicate old infections, detoxify your body and minimize new toxin exposure.
2. Address any critical hormone deficiencies.
3. Optimize antioxidant levels by supplementing with vitamin C, preferably a high-quality powder and liposome encapsulated forms.
4. Consider additional recommended dietary supplements, including lysine and proline, complete B complex, beta carotene, vitamin D3, vitamin K2, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium glycinate, and mixed tocopherols.
5. And, of course, consider weight-bearing exercise like, walking, jogging or hiking.  Plus, strength training exercises like, dumbbell chest presses, push ups, lunges and squats. If you don’t know how to exercise properly, consider working with a health coach or fitness professional.  The rewards are worth the effort.

Bone loss, deterioration persist 5 years after gastric bypass

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Adults with obesity who underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass experienced high-turnover bone loss and bone microarchitectural deterioration that persisted 5 years after the procedure, according to findings published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

“[Roux-en-Y gastric bypass]-associated skeletal fragility is mediated by accelerated, high-turnover bone loss and has been documented in the short term in multiple longitudinal studies,” Katherine G. Lindeman, of the endocrine unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues wrote in the study background. “Collectively, these studies document that a decline in bone density up to 10% is common in the initial 1-2 years after [Roux-en-Y gastric bypass]. [Roux-en-Y gastric bypass] also leads to short-term declines in volumetric bone density of the axial and peripheral skeleton and weakening of peripheral bone microarchitecture. However, the long-term skeletal consequences of [Roux-en-Y gastric bypass] have not been well-characterized beyond these initial postsurgical years.”

In an observational study, researchers assessed longitudinal data on 21 patients with obesity undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass at an academic medical center.

DXA was used to measure spine and hip areal bone mineral density, and quantitative CT was used to measure trabecular volumetric BMD of the spine. In a subset of participants, high-resolution peripheral quantitative CT was used to measure volumetric BMD and microarchitecture of the distal radius and tibia.

At each study visit, the researchers also measured serum type 1 collagen C-terminal telopeptide (CTX), which assesses bone resorption, and procollagen type 1 N-terminal propeptide (P1NP), which evaluates bone formation, and assessed physical activity. Study participants were advised to maintain a calcium intake between 1,200 mg and 1,500 mg daily and a vitamin D intake of 3,000 IU daily throughout the study.

At 5 years, researchers observed a mean 7.8% decrease in areal BMD at the spine and a mean 15.3% decrease in areal BMD at the total hip. However, the pace of spine areal BMD reduction slowed over time, with most of the bone loss observed within the first 2 years, according to researchers.

At the femoral neck, areal BMD decreased by a mean of 14.1% at 5 years. Additionally, researchers observed a mean 12.1% decrease in trabecular spine volumetric BMD at 5 years (P ≤ .001).

Peripheral sites showed continued and stable decreases over 5 years, with parallel reductions in cortical and trabecular microarchitecture. This led to a 20% decrease in estimated failure load at the radius and a 13% decrease at the tibia (P < .001), the researchers wrote.

After Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, significant increases in bone turnover markers were seen. At 2 years postoperatively, serum CTX was 196% higher vs. baseline levels and remained 150% above baseline at 5 years (P < .001). Increases were also seen in serum P1NP, reaching the highest point at 63% at 3.5 years after surgery, and remaining 34% higher at 5 years (P = .017 for comparisons vs. baseline).

“We found that areal and volumetric bone density and skeletal microarchitecture continue to deteriorate through 5 years after [Roux-en-Y gastric bypass] surgery, leading to substantial, cumulative bone loss,” the researchers wrote. “Adults undergoing [Roux-en-Y gastric bypass] warrant close follow-up to detect changes in bone density as well as to prevent secondary hyperparathyroidism and promote physical activity.” – by Jennifer Byrne

Study ties breathing problems, asthma to bone loss.

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 People with asthma-related breathing problems may be at increased risk for bone loss, according to a new study.

The study examined the records of more than 7,000 adults in Seoul, Korea, and found those with a certain characteristic of asthma had significantly lower bone density in a region of their spine than those without asthma symptoms.

The characteristic, called airway hyperresponsiveness, means the airways in the lungs are particularly sensitive, and it doesn’t take much to trigger an asthma attack.

However, both men and women with airway hyperresponsiveness were still in the normal range for overall bone density, on average. And researchers couldn’t say whether the asthma symptoms or the bone loss came first or what linked the two.

“Asthma could be a risk for bone loss. The degree to which their disease puts them at risk for bone loss and fractures needs to be further studied,” Dr. Sonal Singh told Reuters Health.

“We should be thinking about fractures in patients with asthma,” he said. “The study did make me think about the link between asthma and bone loss as I see my patients.”

Singh, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, was not involved in the current research but has studied broken bones in people taking steroids for chronic obstructive lung disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 25 million Americans – or one in 12 – have asthma. The U.S. Surgeon General in 2012 predicted that by 2020 half of Americans over age 50 could have weak bones.

For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Jae-Woo Jung of Seoul National University Medical Research Center analyzed the health records of 7,034 patients seen at their hospital.

They found average bone density was lower in the lumbar spine in the 216 people who tested positive for airway hyperresponsiveness.

The lumbar spine is the region between the ribs and the pelvis.

In addition, about 45 percent of those patients had osteopenia, or lower than normal bone density, and six percent had osteoporosis. That compared to a 30 percent rate of osteopenia and a four percent rate of osteoporosis among people without airway hyperresponsiveness, according to findings published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

The study also found a lower bone density in the lumbar spines of people who reported having been diagnosed with asthma than in people without asthma. But Singh said it was hard to know whether that was meaningful, because the researchers didn’t measure asthma objectively.

Previous studies have found lower vitamin D levels among patients with asthma and related symptoms, the authors write.

They did not respond to a request for comment but speculate in the study that vitamin D deficiency might factor into bone loss among people with asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness.

The current study did not measure participants’ vitamin D levels, so it can’t say anything about the vitamin’s link to asthma and bone loss.

Fractures are a known side effect of the systemic steroids used to treat asthma, Jung and colleagues write. Several studies have also tied inhaled steroids to decreased bone density, they note.

Steroids can decrease bone formation by stopping calcium from being absorbed. The drugs can also interfere with production of sex hormones, causing muscle weakness and raising the risk of falls and related fractures, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH also says that people with asthma may avoid calcium-rich milk and other dairy products as well as weight-bearing exercise – key ingredients for bone health.

In the new study, the researchers excluded patients who had used systemic steroid medications. But the study did not consider participants’ use of inhaled steroids or other drugs for control of asthma and related symptoms.

Singh said the study prompted him to want to examine asthma and bone loss in research considering ethnicity, physical activity, vitamin D levels and use of inhaled steroids.