Osteoporosis? Not All Bone Weight Is Equal

For decades, doctors have used the Body Mass Index (BMI) to assess the risk of developing osteoporosis.

BMI measures how your weight fits your height. A higher number indicates heavier and stronger bones.

But not all weight is created equal, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Until now, studies on the relationship between body fat mass and bone mineral density have been all over the place, with some studies finding no relationship at all and other studies finding that fat mass actually has positive effects on bone strength.

To finally reach a firmer conclusion, a team of Chicago-based researchers performed a study of their own to find out whether a relationship exists between high fat mass and bone health.

They used information that was first collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In particular, they examined data from 10,814 people aged 20–59 for whom full body composition and bone mineral density numbers were available.

Body composition consists of lean mass index and fat mass index. The former is basically the weight of your muscles, organs, skin, and bones, without fat.

Since older people, women, Whites, Asians, and smokers have higher osteoporosis risk than their peers, these researchers controlled for these factors to ensure that they would not influence the findings.

After crunching the numbers, they discovered some useful information:

1. Lean mass had a positive effect on bone mineral density, with every 1 kg/m2 additional score on the lean mass index being associated with an additional 0.19 points in the T-score (measurement of bone mineral density).

2. Fat mass had a negative effect on bone mineral density, with every 1 kg/m2 additional score on the fat mass index being associated with a decrease of 0.10 points in the T-score.

3. The effects of lean mass were equally beneficial in men and women, although the effects of fat were more negative among men than women: 0.13 versus 0.08 lower T-score per additional 1 kg/m2 fat mass index score.

This shows clearly that fat accumulation in our bodies diminishes the mineral density and strength in our bones, which may put us at risk of osteoporosis.

That’s why we must make an effort to keep our fat storage to a minimum through physical exercise and prudent dieting if we don’t want our bone health to spiral downward.

But if you already suffer from osteoporosis, building muscles and losing fat is not going to help. You need to take specific diet and lifestyle steps to strengthen your bones. Fortunately, thousands of readers have done just that—and completely reversed their osteoporosis in weeks—by using the simple steps explained here…