Your bone and joint health is critical to more things than you presently realize. It’s not until one is suffering from a debilitating joint disease like rheumatoid arthritis, gout or tennis elbow that it hits us just how important well-functioning and healthy bones and joints are. Unfortunately, at this point it is often too late to do anything about it other than just pop pills for the rest of your natural life in an attempt to manage the condition. The good thing, though, is that you can pre-empt this by taking meticulous care of your skeletal infrastructure earlier. Speaking of which, here’s a quick rundown of what is good for bone and joint health.
At What Age Should You Start Taking Care of Your Bones, Cartilage and Joints?
The best strategy if you want to be mobile as late as your 90s and beyond is to start building the foundation for strong bones and fluid joints as early as possible, optimally as early as your 20s.
Here’s the thing; strengthening bones or strengthening joints, unlike building muscle or losing weight, is more of a long term and lifetime project. It’s something that you don’t take a break from or can afford to be compulsive. You also need the right diet, lifestyle discipline, exercise routine, vitamins for bone and joint health to keep your skeletal tissue in superb shape as you get older.
The biggest challenge to strengthening cartilage or joints is that it is a bit difficult to tell when your skeletal hinges are falling off until it is too late. You see, unlike your muscles or tendons, the only way you could know for sure that your bones are weaker than they should be is after it’s too late and you are confined to a wheelchair. As such, prevention is clearly better than cure because healing broken bones is harder than strengthening joints.
What Determines the Health of Bones, Cartilage and Joints?
There are several factors that weigh in on one’s state of their joints, bones and cartilages. A huge chunk of this revolves around lifestyle choices and closely related fitness levels. They include;
· Weight control: It’s no-brainer that being overweight puts additional stress and tension on your joints compared to when you are within healthy BMI levels. What’s more, its easier on joints during physical exertion when you are not overweight.
· Diet: A diet low in calcium predisposes you unnecessarily to low bone density, early bone deterioration which is then followed by an increased risk of suffering fractures.
· Bad habits: Research shows that prolonged tobacco use contributes immensely to weak bones as do chronic alcoholism. The latter predisposes you significantly to bone defects like osteoporosis later in life.
· Lactation and pregnancy: This is the major reason that women need to take better care of their bone health. There is no doubt that pregnancy and lactation already makes them vulnerable to having less bone tissue integrity than men, thanks to the massive toll that these two life-giving events take on their calcium reserves.
· Mental state: There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that seems to suggest how cortisol ( a hormone released by the pituitary gland during stressful moments ) has a bearing on bone health. Chronically depressed persons seem to suffer more bone mass loss than those that have a happier state of mind.
· Hormonal levels: Too much or too little levels of various hormones, such as thyroid, can precipitate bone loss. In women, in particular, there’s increased bone loss at menopause thanks to the dwindling estrogen levels. This is one of the reasons why hormonal replacement theory should be pursued after 50 if you wish to keep bone-related maladies at bay.
How Does Aging of Bones, Cartilage and Joints Manifest?
While it is inevitable that we will all get old and gray at some point, it is the uncharacteristic aging of bones that has puzzled experts the most. Unlike other organs and tissues that fall off the cliff progressively, the deterioration of the skeletal muscle catches most people flatfooted and unprepared. It is also not easy to run conclusive tests about the state of your bone health before the symptoms start to rear their ugly health.
Nevertheless, while the impact of this decay is felt more in your 60s and beyond, the damage usually begins as early as your 30s when your joints start to progressively become stiffer and the synovial fluid becomes less lubricating. As a result the cartilage between joints begins to rub into each other and wear away. There’s also a characteristic deposit of minerals around major joints, commonly referred to as calcification, that increases progressively the more birthdays we celebrate.
What Foods are Good for Bone and Cartilage?
One of the most effective ways of preventing the degeneration of our connective tissues and bones when Father Time comes calling is eating a bone-friendly diet more consistently. With this in mind, foods that are good for bone health are those that are rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium and vitamin D. This implies that we are looking at food groups such as dairy products, green vegetables, eggs, sweet potato, avocado, beans and seafood. Other than this, you need to boost your intake of collagen-boosting foods to repair and support the function of your spinal discs, ligaments and tendons. Again, cruciferous vegetables and plenty of foods rich in vitamin A and C should do the trick.
What Vitamins are Important for Bone and Joint Health?
To support the growth and integrity of your connective tissues such as cartilages and ligaments, you might want to up your intake of the following vitamins and micronutrients; sulfur, vitamin C, vitamin A, omega-3 and manganese. Bone broth, especially from grass-fed and organically-reared beef bones, is also an excellent source of the minerals needed for a sturdy skeletal tissue.
Of course, we do recognize that not everyone has the luxury of time to prepare good quality bone broth by letting beef bones simmer in apple cider vinegar for close to 24 hours. This is why its vital to supplement your collagen intake regularly using quality and reliable supplements like Bloommy Biotin Collagen and Keratin Capsules available at mybloommy.com. These superstar capsules have been specially formulated to make it incredibly easy for you to assimilate the vital nutrients that are needed for healthy joints, bones and cartilage, all in one clean swoop.
