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Milk and Exercise Help Prevent Osteoporosis

To keep your bones strong and healthy, it's important to get enough calcium throughout your life. Exercise, too, keeps your bones stronger by preventing bone loss.

High-calcium foods -- Vitamin D fortified milk, cheese, tofu and kale -- are major assets in warding off bone-weakening osteoporosis. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium. You can get enough vitamin D if you spend a total of 20 minutes every day outdoors, because the sun helps your body produce vitamin D. Vitamin D is also found in eggs, fatty fish, and fortified cereal and milk. Experts recommend 400 IU for those under 50 and up to 600 IU for those over 50. Talk to your doctor if you think you may need a supplement.

Good activities that help make bones and muscles stronger include walking, jogging, playing tennis and dancing. These are all examples of weight-bearing exercise, which forces you to work against gravity.

Bess Dawson-Hughes, M.D., of Tufts University's Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, explains that:

• Bone constantly dissolves and rebuilds as it swaps minerals with other body parts. That means strong bones require calcium (and phosphorus to help you absorb it).
• Increasing your calcium intake reduces bone "remodeling" and slows bone loss. Osteoporosis damage usually surfaces after age 60, but by 35, our bones no longer build tissue. Bone mass holds steady until about 45, when we begin losing about 1 percent annually. Postmenopausal women are at greater risk for fractures because decreasing estrogen production can cause severe bone-mass loss.

Experts say most of us can get enough calcium from our diet, but many of us don't. "Three cups of vitamin D fortified milk daily would put you well on your way," says Dr. Dawson-Hughes.

Besides getting enough calcium and vitamin D, and exercise, here are two other ways to keep your bones healthy: Don't smoke and limit your alcohol consumption.

Calcium by the numbers
The following recommendations are from the National Academy of Sciences.

Recommended daily intake (in milligrams):
Infants 0 to 6 months - 210
Infants 7 to 12 months - 270
Children 1 to 3 years - 500
Children 4 to 8 - 800
Adolescents 9 to 18 - 1,300
Adults 19 to 49 - 1,000
Adults 50 and older - 1,200
Women pregnant or lactating - 1,000