The Causes Of Osteoporosis

Generally, osteoporosis is caused by a combination of three common imbalances in your body. You don't have to have all these issues to develop osteoporosis, but if you have all three, you likely have osteoporosis or are well on your way to developing it. By the way, we are not including long time use of drugs like steroids that wipe out bone density; That's an entirely different matter. You've got to get off the drugs or steroids to stop losing bone density.

To understand how these issues cause your osteoporosis, you must first understand the process of getting calcium into the bones.

Bones are living tissues that must be constantly rebuilt via a two part process; first, cells called osteoclasts have the job of getting rid of old weakened bone. They resorb old bone to make room for the creation of healthy strong bone. If you have too many osteoclasts absorbing your bones, your bone density will decease.

Second, you must have osteoblasts, immature bone cells, to produce a matrix composed of collagen that then becomes mineralized. Osteoblasts are vital for increasing bone density. Bone mass is maintained by a balance between the activity of osteoblasts that form bone and osteoclasts that break it down. In osteoporosis the net rate of bone resorption exceeds the rate of bone formation, resulting in a decrease in bone mass.

Osteoporosis Cause #1 -- Low Magnesium / High Calcium Ratio

Calcium and magnesium are the major minerals in your body. And they are intimately related because they need each other to work properly. If your diet has been low in magnesium your whole life, as it typically is when eating a Western diet, then there will be an imbalance of magnesium and calcium in your body which disrupts cellular function.

The Calcitonin hormone that inhibits osteoclast production (remember, osteoclasts tell your body to break down your bones - decreasing bone density) relies on magnesium to function properly. When we lack magnesium, osteoclast activity is too high and causes bone loss. When magnesium levels are adequate, they support the calcitonin hormone that tells your body not to pull calcium from the bones. When magnesium levels are too low, you lose bone density and osteoporosis eventually develops because more osteoclasts are being produced then are necessary.

Fundamentally, the Western diet is low in magnesium and high in calcium because Western countries have a higher intake of dairy products. The average calcium intake is about 1000 mg. The calcium to magnesium ratios found in milk, yogurt and hard cheeses are 7:1, 11:1, and 26:1 respectively - more on this below.

How to tell if your magnesium levels are low

Most doctors do not understand the difference between a serum magnesium level blood test and a red blood cell magnesium level test. Magnesium levels of blood serum must be kept within a tight range, or the heart stops. Therefore serum levels must be maintained at normal levels, at the expense of levels inside cells.

In other words: even if you are very low in magnesium, your blood will almost always test as normal,  because your body pulls magnesium from cells into the blood to maintain normal magnesium blood serum levels. Most labs just test for serum levels, and patients are told their magnesium is normal.

You need to measure intracellular magnesium levels to determine if you have low magnesium levels. The easiest cell to get at is the red blood cell, so ask your doctor to test your magnesium levels with the red blood cell test.

You can be pretty sure your levels are low if you eat a typical Western diet and have osteoporosis. You will have too much calcium from your diet (and supplements), and not enough magnesium. I say this is the primary cause because worldwide, Asian and African populations with a low intake (about 300 mg a day) of calcium with higher magnesium intake have very little osteoporosis.

Thus, the low magnesium intake with high calcium intake common to our Western diet is most likely the primary cause of osteoporosis in most people. But these next two issues may each be responsible about 25% of the time for your loss of bone density.

Osteoporosis Cause #2 -- Female / Male Hormones Are Low

In women, osteoclast or bone removal activity increases after menopause because estrogen levels decrease. During the first 5 to 10 years after menopause, women can suffer up to 2%-4% loss of bone density per year, up to 25%-30% of their bone density during that time period. This is one of the main reasons hormone replacement therapy is given.

Synthetic hormones do not work well and are not good for you. Current research clearly demonstrates increased risk of breast and other cancers when using HRT. Bio-identical hormones are safer and work more effectively. Possibly the best way to boost your female hormone production is to get your body to make more on its own - more on that later in this article.

For men, it is low testosterone levels that are the issue. As with estrogen, decreased testosterone levels cause increased osteoclast activity which results in bone loss. As testosterone levels decrease with age the likelihood of developing osteoporosis increases.

There has been research showing that low levels of testosterone in women is also associated with a decrease in bone density. However, increasing progesterone levels is usually all that is needed to increase testosterone in women, as the  progesterone is converted to testosterone in women as needed.

Osteoporosis Cause #3 -- Low Thyroid Function

Osteoclasts are activated by the parathyroid hormone which signals osteoclasts to resorb bones. You can turn down their activity though. Calcitonin is the hormone that inhibits the activity of osteoclasts so that they don’t resorb too much of your bones. Calcitonin is primarily made by your thyroid. Thus, low or poor thyroid function results in not enough calcitonin being produced, so the osteoclasts are not inhibited to the degree they need to be, causing them to resorb too much bone.

High doses of thyroid medicine have actually been associated with bone loss. This is one of the chief concerns when taking thyroid medicine. It is doubtful that the medication is the cause. Rather, the people on the highest medication often have the poorest thyroid function. As the synthetic thyroid medication does not work well (synthetics of any kind never function correctly), it is reasonable to conclude that these medicines are not able to increase production of calcitonin.

Systemic Candida Yeast Overgrowth May Cause Bone Loss.

Candidiasis leads to female (and male) hormonal imbalance and low thyroid function.

Because of this, if you have osteoporosis, or if you wish to prevent osteoporosis, it is essential to find out if you have candida overgrowth. It may be the underlying cause of your osteoporosis, and you are unlikely to improve your bone density without addressing this issue.

Candida overgrowth disrupts your hormones, especially female hormones, as it eats progesterone. This also causes low testosterone in men. In addition, chronic candida overgrowth causes adrenal fatigue which leads to a low thyroid. Any or all of these imbalances and low levels create a response in the body that can cause the development of osteoporosis. In addition, candida will eat your magnesium, leading to low magnesium levels, another major cause of bone loss.

Again, it may be that candida yeast overgrowth will prove to be the major cause of bone loss in most people. Therefore, you must get candida overgrowth under control to have any hope of increasing your bone density and reversing osteoporosis.

Click on the link below for a site that tells you about candida yeast overgrowth in detail - Candidiasis is far more invasive than just a vaginal yeast infection. You'll learn about a free and simple test to do so you can determine if you have candida overgrowth or not, and how you can deal with this exasperating health problem. Go to www.candida-yeast-infection-relief.com

If you find out that you do have candida overgrowth as well as osteoporosis, you've got to deal with the candida if your overgrowth is at all extensive. The two fundamental supplements we suggest are the CandElim (for killing candida and its spores), and TotalFlora15 (to replenish the friendly bacteria that are needed to keep the candida from overgrowing).

The supplements we suggest for the Basic Bone Density Combo - OCMP, FemBalance and Tyovu, are also either candida fighters (OCMP) or products that work to reverse the hormonal imbalances caused by candida (FemBalance and Tyovu).

So using the Basic Bone Density Combo along with CandElim and TotalFlora15 would be a fundamental way to start. Of course, other candida fighters mentioned on the site can be used, and you can certainly do the Full Bone Density Combo if you desire.

Click Here to go to the Boost Bone Density Store

Other Basic Osteoporosis Causes -- Not Quite As Important

There are other issues that can accelerate or even cause osteoporosis. Any of these could be an underlying cause of decreased bone density, depending on the person.

Low Vitamin D levels

There is a huge amount of research over the last few years showing the importance of Vitamin D for a wide range of health issues, including avoiding osteoporosis. Research also shows that a very high percentage of Westerners are deficient in Vitamin D. Among its many benefits, vitamin D is vital for the absorption of calcium. Years ago alternative MD's and vitamin D experts were recommending supplementation of 1000 or so units a day. Now almost everyone is recommending 5000 units a day. Vitamin D is inexpensive and vital to your health. Use it every day.

Low Vitamin K Levels

One of the functions of vitamin K is to tell you body to put calcium into the bones. It also helps keep your arteries clear of calcium buildup. This is not as vital an issue as low vitamin D levels, but still an important one.

Lack of Exercise

Any good doctor will agree, exercise, especially exercise that has a gentle impact on the bones such as fast walking or jogging, will help the bones feel a need to continue to build and repair themselves. A sedentary lifestyle leaves the body too flacid and the bones wanting to be used.

Excess Acidity

When your diet contains too many acidic soft drinks and foods like grains, pasta, white bread, meat, with too few fruits and vegetables, your blood starts to becomes acidic. Since the blood needs to maintain a neutral pH, your body pulls calcium from the bones to neutralize the acidity. Get some pH strips from your drug store and check your salvia to see if it is too acidic.

Imbalance of DHEA and Cortisol

Cortisol is a stress hormone, produced when there is stress. It will pull calcium from bones. Cortisol and the hormone DHEA balance each other like a teeter totter, if one is high the other is low. So one of the best ways to keep your levels of cortisol low is to make sure you are taking plenty of DHEA so that its levels are high.

Click Here to go to the Boost Bone Density Store