Did you know that bone is one of the strongest natural materials found in nature? Ounce for ounce, healthy bone is even stronger than steel. Having healthy bones is incredibly important during your entire life.
Your bones support you, allow you to move and protect your brain, heart, and other organs from injury. Your bones are like powerful reservoirs that store many key minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous that help keep your bones strong and resilient as well as being able to release these minerals for use when you need them.
After evaluating thousands of years of human development, scientists have found that our skeletons of today have become much lighter and more fragile than in the past – which they believe is a direct result of our poorer diets and our increasingly sedentary lifestyles (as compared to rigorous hunting and foraging in the distant past).
Make no bones about it! Building and keeping your bones healthy is extremely vital if you want to live a long and vibrant life. With a healthy diet, your body can absorb sufficient minerals to build strong bones during your adolescence to old age. However, most people reach their peak bone mass between the ages of 25 to 30 years of age.
Seriously? That means that on average, your bone health and density start to decline after only age 30. By the time you hit age 40, your bone mass is slowly being lost. What can you do to keep your bone health at robust levels for much longer?
Fortunately, high quality nutrients and regular exercise can help support the superior health of your bones when you are young as well as when you get older. It is also incredibly important to pay attention to your bone density to protect against osteoporosis and fractures later in life.
Check out these six nutrients that you need to support healthy bones:
1. Calcium, of Course!
Arguably the mineral most attributed to bone health, calcium stores in the body are primarily found in bones and teeth. Although calcium can support healthy bone density and strength, your body cannot make it and must absorb it from your diet. A lack of calcium in your body can cause bone weakness or prevent bones from growing properly in children.
Good sources of calcium are leafy greens and other green veggies. If your diet is weak in the green color, get the nutrition you need from organic greens supplements, especially fermented greens.
2. Magnificent Magnesium
As another key mineral for healthy bones, magnesium supports higher bone mineral density, which may help reduce the risk of bone fractures and brittleness. In addition to its role in supporting bone strength, magnesium can help regulate muscle and nerve function and support healthy blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
A good source of magnesium is leafy greens and other green veggies. Once again, if your diet is weak in green veggies, opt for nutritional supplements that can elegantly provide magnesium, especially from seawater concentrates.
3. The Sunshine Vitamin
Vitamin D3 may not be the first mineral you think of in relation to bone health, but this sunshine vitamin is critically important to help your body absorb key minerals for bone health, especially calcium. Vitamin D3 can also help reduce inflammation and help regulate a healthy immune system.
If you do not regularly get outside to absorb adequate sunshine, opt to supplement with a natural-source vitamin D3 to get the full amount of D3 you need.
4. Bone Superstar – K2
Amazing new research has shown that working in perfect synergy with vitamin D3, vitamin K2 can help promote superior bone health by ensuring healthy calcium metabolism. Vitamin K2 supports bone formation and bone strength by promoting proper metabolism of calcium from the circulatory system to the bone. Taken together, vitamins D3 and K2 are a dynamic team that provide impressive support for bone and joint health.
Although your gut can produce small amounts of vitamin K2 under the right conditions, K2 is only found in animal foods and certain fermented foods. For best health, it is often recommended to consume small amounts of fermented foods or to opt to take a nutritional supplement with fermented food concentrates, such as fermented turmeric, greens, or mushrooms.
5. Powerful Potassium
The mineral, potassium, is most commonly used as a post-workout power-up, as it helps regulate fluid balance and muscle contractions. However, recent studies have shown that potassium can help reduce calcium loss from bones by neutralizing acid load, thus having a beneficial effect on bone mineral density.
Is your diet rich in potassium? One of the best sources of potassium is dark leafy greens. If you seriously need to “green up” your diet, you can get the potassium-rich nutrition you need by taking an organic greens supplement, especially fermented greens.
6. Phosphorus is Fantastic
Your bone matrix primarily consists of calcium phosphate, making phosphorus nearly as important as calcium in supporting bone strength. During childhood, phosphorus is crucial to help build a healthy skeleton in a process known as bone mineralization. A deficiency of this fantastic mineral can lead to many bone diseases, so be sure to include some phosphorus-rich foods in your diet.
Good options for phosphorus foods include nuts, beans, and fatty, wild-caught fish. Also, starchy vegetables tend to have a higher phosphorous content, such as a baked potato.
The Bottom Line
Make it your goal to keep your bones in tip-top shape so they can support your lifelong vitality. Wise dietary choices, as well as selected nutritional supplements that contain the six stellar minerals (above) in concentrated forms, can easily be included in your daily routine.
What a great feeling to know that you do not have to wait until you start experiencing bone pain or bone loss to do something. Right now, you can start supporting the excellent health of your skeleton for a lifetime.