Keep Your Bones Strong with This Activity

Originally published on Monday, October 24th, 2011
Exercise, Weight Loss by for The Doctors Health Press

You may be like many people and think that your bones are solid and hard and perform a single function: to add rigidity and structure to your body. But in this health e-letter article, you’re going to learn that bones are actually much more porous than that. They are made up of different layers and substances. Bone material has both collagen, to allow for flexibility, and calcium, to provide structural integrity.

Your bones also continually remodel themselves. They do this in two stages: first bones perform a task called “resorption.” This is when cells called “osteoclasts” dissolve old bone, creating cavities. The second way bones remodel themselves is by bone formation. “Osteoblasts” (not to be confused with osteoclasts) fill the cavities left by osteoclasts with calcium. Normally, bone resorption and bone formation happen in tandem: one activity is balanced by the other activity. When the two are out of sync, you could lose bone mass.

What can cause resorption and bone formation to become unbalanced? The latest health news is that it all has to do with electricity, believe it or not. Remodeling of your bones happens through electricity in the form of low-energy waves that put stress on your bones. To form bone, you must have this electrical charge. How do you get that charge? By participating in some weight-bearing exercise. This is why it is so important to do a little resistance exercise when it comes to strengthening bones and muscle.

Researchers at the University of Turku in Finland prefaced a recent study by noting that, in older people with frailty syndrome, aging-related loss of muscle and bone might progress to the extent that an older person could lose his or her ability to live independently. They also stated that, due to the ongoing obesity pandemic and growing elderly population, metabolic and frailty syndromes are a major emerging concern in the healthcare system.

They set out to find a solution to this problem by showing that resistance training has remarkable beneficial effects on the musculoskeletal system. Resistance training also has a favorable effect on metabolic syndrome since it decreases fat mass, including belly fat. They concluded with this health advice: resistance training is probably the most effective way to prevent and treat age-related muscle loss. In addition, they asserted that resistance training could maintain or even increase bone mineral density.

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