Best Tips to Boost Bone Density for Women Over 30

For women, you need to understand that maintaining good bone density can save your life. At approximately age 30, studies indicate that bone density is at its peak, which means that, as you get older, that bone density begins to decline. To be absolutely honest, there is nothing you can do to completely prevent the loss of bone density, but, before you panic, it should be of some comfort for you to know that you can, however, slow down the rate of bone density loss.

While I am directing this towards women in their 30s, the following advice still benefits women of all ages (men too!). The best things you can do to maintain or improve your bone density shouldn’t surprise you — eat healthy and exercise. If you were looking for something radically new and a generational breakthrough, I’m sorry for disappointing you. That said, let’s talk about some of the best ways to help you maintain your bone health.

Resistance Training

It doesn’t matter if you’re 20, 30, or even 80, adding a resistance training program into your lifestyle is going to pay huge dividends for you. Lifetime bone density peaks between ages 18-30, then gradually decreases in the pre-menopausal phase (ages 30 to approximately 50), then takes a sharp decline after age 50 (post-menopause). While there is no way to absolutely prevent bone density loss, you can slow it down with resistance training (aka lifting weights).

While resistance training is highly effective in slowing down bone density loss, do you know what exercises are the best at maintaining bone density? Instead of zeroing in on a few exercises, experts recommend all resistance training exercises the pique your interest enough to get you working out consistently. In general, barbell exercises most often lead to the most gains in bone density, this is simply because the majority of gym goers are able to lift the most weight with barbell exercises, but this should not be confused with a suggestion you should only do barbell exercises.

Do you know why exercise is so beneficial for preserving bone density? Pretty much, it has to do with your body’s ability to make adjustments because you’re carrying more weight. Just like your body can build muscle mass and increase strength when you train with progressive overload, your bones are also getting stronger to be able to support the added weight from your workouts.

Nutrition

For a lot of women in America, being busy with your job and daily demands in life can easily put your nutrition in the back burner, even though you probably know that this can be problematic for your health. Maybe you recall your teachers in elementary school telling you that it’s important that you get your vitamin D to keep your bones strong. This was actually very good advice since good vitamin D intake could help growing children reduce the risk of diseases like the rickets, as well as other autoimmune, infectious, and allergic diseases.

In general, most people already know that vitamin D and calcium are two important nutrients that can strengthen women’s bone health, but do you know about selenium? As you get older (think senior years), osteoclasts (which are a type of bone cell that breaks down bone tissue) become much more active than normal, thus leading to bone resorption (aka a breakdown of bone tissue, thus releasing minerals like calcium from the bones to the bloodstream) and resulting in weakened bones. Selenium is a mineral that recent studies indicate a possibility that it may play a role in slowing down bone resorption in women (more research is still needed, though). This mineral is easily obtainable from seafood, meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, breads, cereal, and other grain products, in which the recommended daily intake is 55 mcg.

You may not have known this, but did you know that your bones are constantly being remodeled? You have osteoclasts breaking down bones, then osteoblasts producing new bone to replace what was previously broken down. When osteoclast activity is outrunning osteoblast activity, this is how bones lose their density and overall strength, thus leaving women, especially those that are post-menopausal, vulnerable to broken bones. Vitamin E is one mineral that plays a major role in regulating the bone remodeling cycle, thus keeping bones from becoming weakened and at risk of breakage. Nuts, seeds, avocados, mangoes, and spinach are great sources of vitamin E, as well as seed oils.

Self-Preservation

By now, I’d imagine that you have long known that smoking isn’t good for you, especially for your lungs, but what if I told you that it’s also bad for your bone health? It’s true. Smoking inhibits the vitamin D-parathyroid hormone axis, which means that calcium is unable to be absorbed from the diet as efficiently, therefore the body breaks down bone tissue to get calcium into the bloodstream to keep levels stable. Ultimately, what this means is that your bones will be weakened and more vulnerable to fractures.

Being overweight or obese is among the main contributors of excess stress on the bones, but highly restrictive diets meant to lose weight rapidly can be even greater health risks for women. While excess bodyweight may actually lead to stronger bones if food intake is nutrient dense and exercise is consistent, but if the excess weight is coming from a bad diet that is poor in nutrients and exercise is nonexistent, the tendons and ligaments are at a much higher risk of tearing because they don’t have the strength to stay intact. The best solution is to maintain a healthy weight, one where body fat percentage is somewhere between 14-31%. If weight loss is necessary, a steady rate of weight loss around 1-2 lbs per week is recommended.

Women that are truly committed to optimizing bone health have to be sure they see their doctors for regular check-ups. In America, one of the leading reasons that women are so often caught off guard for low bone density and suffering fractures from a simple fall is that they were not getting their health screened. By seeing your doctor regularly and undergoing bloodwork and bone density tests (this goes for all women from ages 30-130!!!), they may be able to catch a potential hazard and nip it in the bud before something bad happens.

Conclusion

As much as you would like to think that you can be young forever, unfortunately, as early as age 30, your body is already starting to breakdown. Before you start freaking out or completely giving up on living a healthy lifestyle, you need to know that living that healthy lifestyle can slow down, and in some cases reverse, the loss of bone density and muscle mass. Maintaining healthy bones can save you from painful, sometimes life-threatening, bone breaks in the future, but it can only be done when you are consistently exercising and remaining physically active, consuming nutrient-dense foods that are rich in essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs, and taking steps to maximize self-preservation by getting your regular check-ups and maintaining good weight management.

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