The global number of hip fractures ...

The global number of hip fractures has reached epidemic, or pandemic, proportions. As populations "worldwide gradually age, the global load of hip fractures is count uponed to treble to over 6 million cases a year by dint of 2050," project Robert Lindsay, MBCHB PhD FRCP and Jeri Nieves, PhD of the Helen Hayes Hospital Regional Bone Center in West Haverstraw, NY

In a commentary entitled "Milk and Bones: You Are What You Drink," Lindsay and Nieves pertain to a recent study by way of S. Murphy, et al., which prov the benefits of "high calcium intake onward bone mineral density."

In a community-based observe of middle-aged and older women (aged 44 to 77) Murphy and colleagues institute that "milk consumption before the age of 25 correlated positively with rife bone mineral density."

Calcium is a clew skeletal building block

These findings, and flows of their own studies, l Lindsay and Nieves to end that "although peak bone mass is primarily in a less degree than genetic control, it seems logical that to achieve adequate skeletal maturation during increase requires a plentiful supply of the building shut ups of the skeleton, of which calcium is undivided of the most important."

The reflection by Murphy and colleagues evaluated rather cheap intakes of milk, however, Lindsay and Nieves add.

The maximal calcium intake of someone drinking a 227 ml glass of milk each day comes to only 650 mg/day (with 300 mg from the milk and the security from non-dairy sources).

This is below "the presum `threshold' of calcium intake -- that even of intake above which" would satisfy the calcium extremitys of most people, Lindsay and Nieves explain.

To provide this amount of calcium, they added, "even if adolescents absorb calcium more than [do] adults (and this is disputed), would require an intake of at least 1500 mg/day."

Vitamin D deficiency is another factor related to reduc bone mass, and is another area that has been investigated by dint of Drs. Nieves and Lindsay in conjunction with researchers from the Multiple Sclerosis Center and Columbia University's community of Physicians and Surgeons.

Since it is known that one as well as the other multiple sclerosis (MS) and osteoporosis flash on the mind more frequently in women than in men and that "patients with M may be at increased risk for osteoporosis and pathologic fracture," Nieves, Linday and colleagues measured bone-mineral-density and biochemical indicators in a collection of 80 female patients with MS

It was set up that bone-mineral-density "was significantly reduc in female M patients, which might increase fracture risk," and that "vitamin D deficiency with secondary hyperparathyroidism is prevalent and is probably a significant cause of depressed bone-mineral-density in this population."

The authors conclud that "vitamin D deficiency in the female M patient might be safely and inexpensively corrected at the routine use of vitamin D supplements"

In a 1994 contemplation that appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology, calcium and vitamin D of the same heights were evaluated in 143 women with rheumatoid arthritis.

Although calcium horizontals were normal, "vitamin D evens were significantly below normal in mostly subjects," especially in the winter month when day-star exposure is less, the authors institute "Rheumatoid arthritic patients have increased bone los and risk befitting to osteoporosis," they concluded.

According to Michael F Holick, MD in Frank Murray's The Big Family Guide to All the Minerals (1995) "the major cause of age-related vitamin D deficiency is a decrease in milk consumption [and that] four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day provide [the required] 400 IU of vitamin D" distressed to prevent such a deficiency.

Vitamin D wants are higher for older women

Murray quot USDA/Tufts researcher, Elizabeth A. Krall, PhD as saying that "the commended Dietary Allowance for vitamin D [200 IU] may be too cheap to protect older women from losing bone calcium during the winter months"

She added that an "inadequate intake of vitamin D during the sun-starved days of winter, when the skin bring forwards little or no vitamin D can mean les calcium for the bones"

"As vitamin D on a levels dip, another hormone rises to help maintain a constant family calcium level, probably by borrowing calcium from the bones' she concluded

According to Robert M Giller, MD in Murray's Guide, to help intercept osteoporosis, we should all take the following permanent lifestyle gradations in addition to others:

* Increase your intake of healthful viandss containing calcium.

* Adopt a regular exercise program.

* Eliminate caffeine, sugar, and alchohol from your diet.

* In addition to your usual appendix program, take 1,200 mg of calcium, 400 mg of magnesium, 2 mg of boron, and a multiple that provides 400 IU of vitamin D

Prevent three serious conditions

What many of the studies are attempting to determine, of course, are optimal evens of calcium and other nutrients which will obstruct such conditions as osteoporosis, osteopenia and osteomalacia.

Osteoporosis: Osteoporosis is a disease "in which bone density declines to the point that there is a significant, and thus clinically important, risk of fracture," Lindsay stated in a review article, entitled "Secondary Prevention of Osteoporosis."