Had your glass of milk today?

Osteoporosis affects a vast number of New Zealand’s population – nearly half of all females over the age of 60 and up to a third of men. Often we know nothing of it until we break a bone. Because of it’s quiet, unnoticed approach it is easy to ignore until we begin having problems. Instead, we should be focusing on this throughout our life.

Bone is alive and is constantly being broken down and repaired and regenerated by our bodies. Our entire skeleton can be replaced by weight over period of 7-10 years.

From the ages 9-18 yrs we should aim to eat 1300mg of calcium a day, as this is the time when we deposit the majority of calcium (around 90%) in our bones. We reach our peak bone mass at around 30 years. Aim to maintain our bones with 1000mg a day (19-50yrs).

New research has suggested that the risk of fractures later in life may actually be also influenced before we are even born. Maternal nutrition (low calcium and vitamin D), smoking, lack of physical activity and low birth weight play a role in baby’s likelihood to develop osteoporosis. (Aim for 1000-1300mg calcium during pregnancy)

As we age the loss of calcium from bones is accelerated, particularly in females after menopause, so an increased amount of calcium is required (1300mg). Men over 70 should also aim for this amount.

So to reduce the risk of osteoporosis – look at eating a balanced diet, and getting a little sunlight each day for vitamin D, which helps absorb calcium. Give up smoking – smokers have an increased risk of osteoporosis. Ensure you exercise regularly including weight bearing exercise such as walking, weights, dancing and running. Limit your coffee, soda drinks, salt and alcohol.

To achieve our recommend daily intake of calcium is surprisingly easy, aim for 2-3 serves of dairy foods a day as part of a balanced diet. So have a count of your daily dairy food intake and see if you should be improving your intake.

It is not necessary to limit yourself to Dairy products for calcium. Here are some examples of sources of calcium.

Sources of Calcium
Sardines 1 small can 120g 550mg
Milk fortified 200ml 400mg
Milk light blue 200ml 280mg
Ruhbarb 1 cup 250mg
yoghurt 1 pottle 150ml 245mg
Soy milk fortified 200ml 240mg
Mussels 80g 130mg
Tofu 125g 130mg
Tinned salmon 120g 110mg
Almonds 1/4 cup 95mg
Bread wholemeal 2 slices 80mg
Broccoli 1 cup cooked 60mg

Salt

Boring – we have heard it all before, lower our salt intake blah blah blah.  Yes, the old salt reduction message has been around for a while but is probably due for a re-address again.  Did you know that decreasing salt intake has more potential to decrease the risk of death or disability than stopping smoking?  Now that’s quite a statement.  This is due to the majority of the population being exposed to salt everyday.

As we age we expect our blood pressure to rise and that we will probably just take a few pills to keep that under control.  Maybe looking at decreasing our salt intake now could be a better option than just relying on those pills later in life.  Populations that have low salt intake do not experience increased blood pressure with ageing, and have significantly lower risk of strokes and heart attacks.

The average salt intake for a Kiwi is around 9g per day.  We are advised to keep our intake to around 5-6g per day; however this is not the optimal intake.  The optimal intake would be only 1-2g per day.   Most of our salt intake (75-80%) comes from processed and brought meals.  This is where it becomes important to read labels and packets to select those products with the lowest salt contents.  For example, 2 slices of bread contain nearly half the salt we require in a day.  So start reading those packets.  By reducing the salt intake the positive effects are both immediate but also long lasting on blood pressure.  Try only adding a small pinch while cooking or none at all.  Don’t even put the salt shaker on the dinner table.  Sure it will taste different at first but with a bit of time you will enjoy the taste of the meal, not just the salt.