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If you're young or young at heart, live in America and don't believe osteoporosis will be a problem for you or your loved ones in the near-term or down the road, guess again. This first-ever report on "Bone Health and Osteoporosis," issued by U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, warns that half of all Americans older than 50 will be at risk for low bone mass and fractures due to osteoporosis, if they take no action by 2020.
The numbers alone speak volumes:
- 10 million Americans over age 50 already have osteoporosis
- 34 million are at risk for developing osteoporosis
- About 1.5 million suffer a bone fracture related to osteoporosis
- Some 20 percent of senior citizens who suffer a hip fracture die within a year of a fracture
- Hip fractures account for 300,000 hospitalizations each year
- The current direct care costs for osteoporotic fractures: $18 billion annually
But there's no need to rush out to your physician to get a prescription for a steroid or Fosamax either, especially when there's many more healthy and inexpensive options available. One of the best things you can do if you have low bone density is increase your consumption of vegetables. Vegetable juicing is a great way to do this that will also normalize high levels of acid in the body. Vegetable juice is also high in vitamin K (phylloquinone), which serves as the biological glue that helps plug calcium into your bone matrix.
Vitamin K is a crucial part of bone health too, but most people do not get enough of it from diet alone unless they juice vegetables or eat large amounts of dark green leafy vegetables.
Yahoo Financial News October 14, 2004