Cal-EZ Blog

Everyone knows that milk is good for your bones. But what about broccoli? Is it rich in calcium? Should you eat it for bone health? Download this printable list of calcium-rich foods and next time you're at the store, you won't need to wonder if you can get your calcium from something other than milk.

What you can do to keep your bones healthy when you have to use them

Asthma, lupus, skin rashes, arthritis. These are just some medical conditions that use CORTICOSTEROIDS as a treatment.

Corticosteroid drugs such as prednisone, cortisone, and hydrocortisone do 2 major things:

Bones – we think of them like we think of scaffolding and beams – hard permanent things. Unfortunately we also think of bones as something that fail as we get older. That’s not the whole story. There is a natural cycle and recycle of bone.

Let’s take a closer look at bone so we can better understand how they work.

This is “Celia.” Celia is an OSTEOCLAST. Osteoclasts, chew up bone. Let’s not blame Celia for being hungry all the time, that’s just what she does. She travels along the surface of bones, which look like this.

As an athlete, I push my body to its limits. In any one week, I am swimming, biking, running, and doing strength training. I usually put in 10+ hours of exercise a week on top of the demands of working and raising children. It can be exhausting, but I love it nonetheless.

A few months ago, I had a bone density test. Something my doctor recommended since I have Hypoparathyroidism. I found out that my bones have had some changes due to the hypopara, but one thing I found to be quite shocking was that I actually have some small osteoporosis signs in my wrists! How on earth do I have those changes in my forearms? My doctor reminded me that, despite my athleticism, these changes can and do happen. She said that it is possible that my wrists are showing the changes because they don’t get the same level of exercise as the rest of me. So she suggested that I ensure I’m getting adequate calcium and vitamin D (something that I have to do for hypopara, but a reminder anyway) and to increase the strength exercise that puts resistance on my wrists (like pushups, oh joy!)

We’ve been talking a lot about bone health and osteoporosis on the Cal-EZ blog lately. Here on earth, we have certain things we need to do to keep our bones healthy. But what happens when your childhood dream of becoming an astronaut comes true and you find yourself on a mission in outer space or being able to live on the International Space Station or end up like Sandra Bullock in Gravity?

According to this article, Dr John Kelly at the University of Pennsylvania, considers osteoporosis a pediatric disease. How can that be? Everyone knows that osteoporosis affects the little old ladies after they’ve gone through “the change” or the little old men at the nursing home. So why would it be considered a pediatric disease?

Sometimes, you just need a summary of some of the essential things you need to know about what you're going through. Am I the only one going through menopause? What happens to my bones when I go through menopause? Are there ways to keep my bones healthy during menopause? Do I need calcium during or after menopause? How much do I need? We've combined the things you want to know about menopause, bone health, and calcium in one area.

Here at Cal-EZ, we talk a lot about bone health and diseases of calcium deficiency like osteoporosis, hypoparathyroidism, and gastroparesis. And even though I'm so immersed in this world of calcium, I find some facts very startling. Like this tweet from the National Osteoporosis Society in the UK.

When I googled silent disease, one of the first things I saw was an article on osteoporosis. I've heard that osteoporosis is a silent disease, and you, like me, may be wondering why it's called this. A silent disease is one that continues to develop in the absence of symptoms. So how does this apply to osteoporosis?

We tend to think of bones as being the foundation on top of which the other structures of our body are formed, like a house being built on a concrete slab. Unlike the house's foundation that remains solid and inert, our bones are alive like the rest of our body and are always being broken down and rebuilt. Sometimes though, our bones are not able to be built back as fast as they are broken down, resulting in osteoporosis.

Remember the saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Well, a study recently brought that phrase to life, yet again. Taking a calcium and vitamin D supplement, costing cents per day, after menopause will save an estimated $12 billion in healthcare costs over the next 7 years. Cents to dollars, ounces to pounds.

How can so much money be saved with a simple supplement?