Cause of Osteopenia aging!

A Cause of Osteopenia aging. After about 35 years of age, you begin to lose more bone that your body makes. Most people  lose about 1% of bone each year after their mid-thirties. Women in their post menopausal year often experienced a much more dramatic increase in bone loss. They lose 4-5% of their bone each year for several years.

But even at the low rate of 1% a year, by age 65 even men have lost about 30% of their total bone mass. This is why we say that a Cause of Osteopenia aging is serious.

Background.  Your may know that your osteoclasts cells remove old bone and your osteoblasts  build new bone. When we are children, our bone building osteoblasts are very active - much more active than our osteoclasts. That is why children's  bones grow so quickly each year. But as we get older the process slows so a Cause of Osteopenia is aging.

In bne building there is a  process is called resorption:  Cells called  osteoclasts remove old bone and then cells called osteoblasts lay down new bone. This process is slow.  In adults it usually takes about 14 months for the removal and rebuilding of a piece of bone. (That is why it would be a waste of money to repeat your dexa scans too often. Your bones need time to build  so the test results would not change much if you repeated your dexa scan too often.)

Cause of Osteopenia aging:  After age 35, your osteoblasts (bone building cells) slow down.  So your osteoclasts, which do not slow down,  may be removing more bone than the osteoblasts are replacing. That is why a Cause of Osteopenia aging.

For some people Osteopenia appears much more quickly.

Some people develop Osteopenia or Osteoporosis in their late 30's or 40's even if they do not have one of the other causal conditions. How can this be?

There are several possible causes of bone loss at an earlier age. It could be that you did not develop strong, thick  bones during your youth.

1. Perhaps you ate a diet with little calcium, magnesium, Vitamin E etc. so your cells did not have the elements necessary for building bones.
   
2. Perhaps you did not play out in sunlight and so did not manufactureenough Vitamin D to build strong bones.  Or maybe you are missing the gene for processing Vitamin D from the sun
3.  Perhaps you consumed a lot of caffeine in sodas, chocolate etc.
4. Perhaps you consumed a lot of phosphorous by drinking soda (pop).
   
5. Perhaps you sat around a lot and did not have enough stress on your bones from running, jumping etc. If you sat in school all day, watched a lot of television and did not run, jump and romp enough your bone building cells would not have been stimulated.
   
6. Perhaps you dieted repeated during your teen and twenties and lost extra bone at a time you would normally be building bone.
7. Perhaps you had an eating disorder and so did not get enough nourishment to build strong bones.
   
8. Perhaps you used steroids or were on one of the other medications known to interfere with bone building
9. Perhaps you exercised so much as to interfere with your hormonal balance. eg. women who skip their periods because too much exercise are at risk for bone loss.
10. And if you started off with a Genetic predisposition, such life style choices simply accelerated the pace of this condition.

There could be any number of reasons why you did not build a sufficient bone mineral density during your younger years. And then as the normal drop in bone density begins in your mid-thirties you develop 'thin bones' ( Osteopenia). If you did not have a strong 'bone bank', this drop of 1% a year in bone density, pushes you into Osteopenia or Osteoporosis long before this would be expected.

Get serious about this Cause of Osteopenia aging

If any of the above are reasons why you have low bone density, you need to get serious about stopping bone loss and building new bone!

You have started by reading this page about: cause of Osteopenia: aging.  You want to go to the CAUSES page and make a list of ALL the other things that could have contributed to YOUR bone loss - it is not the same for everyone.

Once you know all your causes, you can go through this site to find those things that can address  your own particular causes.

You will want to do is to plan some life style changes that can make up for the lacks of your earlier years. You will want to read each page in the Osteoporosis, Osteopenia Treatments  section. There are Soooo many suggestions there. Read all of them.  

Figure out which ones you can start now. Talk to your health care provider and build a plan to overcome the causes of Osteopenia in your life. Remember, others have build new bone. You can too. Do not be discouraged. But do get to work - your bones depend on it.

End of topic: Cause of Osteopenia Aging.

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