Phosphorus and Bone Health

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Phosphorus and Bone Health

 

We need some phosphorus to help make bone. But most of us have far too much of it, which upsets the calcium *chemistry* of the body.

 

Excess phosphorus in the bloodstream sends a message that more calcium is required, and stores are "released" from the bones.

 

Some scientists believe that getting the calcium/phosphorus ratio right is more important than calcium alone in protecting bones.

 

Its very easy to consume too much phosphorus. It's there in all kind of foods -instant soups and desserts, meats, cheese and other dairy, toppings, cola drinks, and carbonated beverages. We need to cut down on all of these!

 

The ideal balance is equal parts of calcium to phosphorus. But research suggests that we consume four times as much phosphorus as calcium. Cottage cheese, for example, contains far more phosphorus than calcium.

 

Diets deficient in vitamin B6 have produced osteoporosis in rats. It appears to increase the strength of connective tissue in bone. You can find vitamin B6 in many common foods such as organic whole grains, fish, nuts, bananas, and avocadoes.

 

Vitamin K is known primarily for its effect on blood clotting. But it is also needed to synthesize 'osteosalcin', a unique protein found in large amounts in bone. Osteocalcin helps 'harden' calcium, so vitamin K is vital to bone "formation". In one study of sixteen osteoporosis patients, blood levels of vitamin K were found to be 35 percent lower than in healthy people of the same age.

 

Frequent use of antibiotics may result in vitamin K deficiency. The best source of vitamin K is dark green leafy vegetables.

 

ZincThis important mineral helps the activity of vitamin D in promoting calcium absorption. Osteoporosis sufferers are frequently low in zinc. Good sources are oysters, cold water fish, pumpkin seeds, and organic eggs.

 

Boron- Some minerals...phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium, for instance-are termed macro-minerals because they are present in our bodies in large amounts.

 

Zinc, manganese, copper, chromium, selenium, and boron, on the other hand, are present in small amounts and are known as *trace* mineral elements. Boron is in fact an "ultratrace" element... the amounts needed are even smaller. But, Boron is now believed to be "vital" for a number of reasons.

 

A U.S, Dept. of Agriculture research study demonstrated that giving women a short course of 3 mg. Boron supplements a day resulted in a 44 percent 'reduction' in the amount of calcium 'excreted' in their urine. It also markedly increased the amount of the 'estrogen hormone' "estradiol" in their blood. The conclusions of this rather dramatic Dept. of Agriculture Study were that boron improved the "metabolism" of calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, helped raise estrogen levels in older women to the levels needed, helped in the manufacture of vitamin D needed for calcium absorption, and reduced calcium, magnesium and estrogen "loss". Boron is found in ALFALFA, KELP, CABBAGE, and LEAFY GREENS. It is stored in our bones and any excess is excreted in the urine.

 

ALFALFA: alfalfa has a superb calcium to phosphorus ratio and it is the richest 'land source' of the trace elements boron and silicon, both of which are valuable for bone integrity!

 

Alfalfa is beneficial for many complaints, however it really hits the jackpot when it comes to rheumatoid and osteo-arthritis, heart problems, high blood pressure, labor and nursing, menopause, PMS and tooth decay. Unfortunately, alfalfa won’t help with these problems however, if you consume refined sugar, processed white flour, processed chemical-laden foods, refined salt, caffeine or alcohol. You will find that if you make these dietary changes and add alfalfa to your daily regimen, you can gradually reduce bone loss and 'alkalize' the body to empty those nasty "acid" deposits.

 

You can take it in either tablet or tea form. (To make teas, steep 1 teaspoon of the herb in 8 ounces of hot distilled water). You’ll need 9-18 tablets per day to benefit from the herb. If you prefer the tea, one to two cups a day is usually sufficient.

 

Drink your tea first thing in the morning and throughout the afternoon. I don’t recommend it in the fluid extract form though, because the alcohol will 'destroy' many of its life-giving vitamins and "enzymes". Start with two to three alfalfa tablets and increase to six or ten, then take that amount twice a day. The optimal dosage may be twenty to thirty tablets taken throughout the day, until you attain an optimal state of regularity. Then cut back to three or four tablets a day. These tablets may be taken at any time of day and are rather inexpensive.

 

MAGNESIUM

 

Like calcium and phosphorus, magnesium is required for strong, healthy bones and teeth. This mineral plays an important part in bone growth, and helps prevent tooth decay by holding calcium in tooth enamel.

 

Food SourcesMagnesium is widely distributed in foods. The foods with the highest magnesium content include many seafoods, raw nuts, organic blackstrap molasses, non-gmo soybeans, sesame seeds, and organic wheat germ. Red and black grapes (espeically concord grapes) and wine are excellent sources.

 

Magnesium is also present in organic whole grains... oatmeal, and brown rice for instance. Dark leafy greens such as spinach, kale and green beans are also good sources.

 

Your body contains between 20 and 28 grams of magnesium. Half of this amount is found in the bones. The remainder activates hundreds of enzymes throughout the body and is CRITICAL for proper cell function!It has been estimated that as much as 60 percent of the U.S. population is at risk for magnesium deficiency. For instance, people using a number of drugs, including antiobiotics and diuretics may have "depleted" magnesium. Understandably, poor magnesium intake has been implicated in disorders such as Osteoporosis.

 

Vitamin D This vitamin is "fat-soluble", unlike vitamin C, and is acquired through sunlight or diet. It helps the vital absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the digestive process, and helps put it into the bone. The body needs broad *daylight* to transform cholesterol into vitamin D.

 

The "hormone" that increases dietary calcium *absorption* (calcitriol), is composed of vitamin D. Some say osteoporosis incidence is, therefore, higher in climates and countries with very little sunlight. If you consume some cold water fish or organic egg yolk on a daily basis, you will absorb all the vitamin D you really need - even when living in Greenland, Canada or Northern Europe.

 

Is osteoporosis incidence really lower in countries with more sunlight? Not necessarily. Though Italy is much sunnier than Poland, hip-fracture incidence in Italy is much higher than in Poland (and Spain), simply because in Italy 25% more dairy products are consumed.

 

Kuwait is extremely sunny, but, nevertheless, osteoporosis incidence in Kuwait is about as high as in Great Britain and France, because in Kuwait, also, lots of milk is consumed.

 

In 52% of examined Saudi Arabian females for example, vitamin D level was extremely low (because clothes are worn that block sunlight), but bones were not affected.

 

A deficiency of Vitamin D leads to 'decalcification' of the bones. Good sources are fish and fish oils.

 

Osteoporosis and a high-fat diet In general, we do not need much vitamin D to either inhibit "PTH secretion" or to increase calcium absorption.

 

Hyper-parathyroidism strongly increases both uptake of calcium into the bones and deportation from the bones, eventually causing osteoporosis.

 

If too little 'calcitriol' is available, the "secretion" of PTH is not sufficiently inhibited.

 

When we eat many High-Protein Dairy products, the animal Protein is broken down into by-products that are highly acidic. Because our bodies can only operate within a very narrow "pH" range between acidity and alkalinity in order to neutralize the resulting acidity the body is required to mobilize Calcium from bones.Once this is accomplished, the Calcium is lost in the urine, never to be returned to the bones. Studies 20 years ago have shown that even when Calcium intake is increased to optimum levels,...more Calcium was lost in the urine than added to the skeleton on a highly *acidic* diet. With this type of diet you will invariably flush 80 mgs of bone away each day. Stay on a High-Protein Diet for 40 years, and you'll inevitably lose 75 percent or more of your "Skeleton"!

 

The first step toward bone building is to eat fewer animal proteins and more calcium rich organic vegetables/fruit replacing dairy milk with non-gmo SOY, RICE, or ALMOND milk both in cooking and on cereal. Consume lots of dark leafy green vegetables, beans, lentils, broccoli, hummus, sesame seeds, oats, fruits, organic Soymilk and non-gmo Tofu/miso for strong bones.

 

Added hormones (artificial hormones such as rBGH) are commonly used to increase milk production. These hormones (59 of them, to be exact), as well as a variety of antibiotics and pesticide residues, come through in cow's milk. It takes seven gallons of milk to make one pound of cheese, so as you can see... the problem is triplicated with cheese consumption.

 

Constant exposure to rBGH and other articial hormones can cause physical problems (Breast, prostate and ovarian cancer are directly related to these hormonal imbalances).

 

Statistics: And yes…... In Greece the average milk 'consumption' doubled from 1961 to 1977 (and was even higher in 1985), and during the period 1977 - 1985 the age adjusted osteoporosis incidence doubled too.

 

In Hong Kong in 1989 twice as much dairy productswere consumed as in 1966 and osteoporosis incidence tripled in the same period. Now their milk consumption level is almost “European”, and so is osteoporosis incidence. Simply stated, where the most milk is consumed, the osteoporosis incidence is highest. Compared to other countries, the most milk is consumed in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and The Netherlands (300 to 400 kg / cap / year), and osteoporosis incidence in these countries has "sky rocketed".

 

Like Australians and New Zealanders, Americans consume three fold more milk than the Japanese, and hip-fracture incidence in Americans is 2½ higher. In those within America that consume less milk, like the Mexican-Americans and Black Americans, osteoporosis incidence is two-fold lower than in white Americans, which is not attributed to genetic differences.

 

Chinese consume very little milk (8 kg / year), and hip-fracture incidence, therefore, is among the lowest in the world; hip-fracture incidence in Chinese women is six fold lower than in the US. (30) (The average American consumes 254 kg milk / year) The less milk consumed, the lower the osteoporosis rate.

 

If you’re looking to consume less protein and more beneficial nutrients to prevent Osteoporosis, here are the plant foods I’d suggest.

 

Cabbages Boron helps raise natural estrogen levels in the blood, and estrogen helps preserve bone. In my database, cabbage ranks highest in boron content among leafy vegetables with 145 parts per million (ppm) on a dry-weight basis. It’s easy to combine cabbage with high-calcium broccoli, beans and non-gmo tofu in steamed vegetable dishes.

 

Dandelion Speaking of boron, dandelion shoots run a close second to cabbage, with 125 ppm. Dandelion also has more than 20,000 ppm of calcium, meaning that just ten grams (just under seven tablespoons) of dried dandelion shoots could provide more than 1 mg of boron and 200 mgs of calcium. Dandelion is also a fair source of silicon, which some studies suggest also helps strengthen bone.

 

Pigweed On a dry weight basis, pigweed leaves are one of our best vegetable sources of calcium, at 5.3 percent. This means that a small serving of steamed leaves provides a hearty 500 mgs of calcium. Other good plant sources of calcium in descending order of potency include broad beans (fava beans), watercress, licorice, marjoram, savory, red clover shoots, thyme, Chinese cabbages (bok choy), basil, celery root, dandelion root, and purslane.

 

Avocado As one reputed vegetable source of vitamin D, avocados can help the body turn calcium into bone. I suggest mashing an avocado into nonfat organic cottage cheese or organic yogurt so you get your calcium and some vitamin D at the same time. Avocadoes are also rich in heart healthy vitamin E.

 

Organic Soybean (Glycine max) and other beans) Vegetarian and Japanese women have a lower incidence of osteoporosis and fractures than Western women. The reason, according to James Anderson, M.D. of the University of Kentucky College of medicine in Lexington, appears to be that those on typical high protein Western diets *excrete* more calcium. Beans are a good source of protein, but they cause less calcium "loss" than meat. In addition, soybeans and other beans contain genistein, a plant estrogen (phytoestrogen) that acts like the female sex hormone in the body. Pharmaceutical estrogen replacement increases the risk of breast cancer. Genistein from beans has never shown to increase cancer risk, and I’d be willing to bet that a diet rich in beans would strengthen bone and prevent heart disease as well as or equally as well as, estrogen pills (HRT).

 

Horsetail French research suggests that silicon helps prevent osteoporosis and can be used to treat bone fractures. Horsetail is among the richest plant sources of themineral, in the form of the compound "onosilicic acid" which is in a form that the body can readily use.Aging and low estrogen levels decrease the body’s ability to absorb silicon. Somerecommend up to nine 350 mg capsules daily.

 

If you’re advised to use horsetail tea, add a teaspoon of pure raw honey along with the dried herb.The honey will pullmore silicon out of the plant. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for about three hours. Strain out the leaves, then let the tea cool before drinking.

 

Parsley That dark green garnish, which is so often thrown away, instead of eaten, is generously endowed with boron. It would take about three ounces of dried parsley to provide the three mgs deemed that is useful in osteoporosis. That’s more than most people want toconsume, but every sprig helps.

 

In my database, parsley is also among the highest food sources of "florine" another bone strengthener. Freshen your breath, while you save your bones by routinely eating every sprig of parsley garnish on your plate in restaurants.

 

I have nothing against calcium supplements but I firmly believe that everyone should get as much calcium as possible from foods. It’s not only possible to do this, it’s better for your bones, because the mineral strength of bone depends on more than calcium. If calcium requirements really were four fold higher, pre-historic infants would never have been able to grow up, and ultimately, to have children. If we really neededcow's milkman could never have existed.

 

Why ? Because we have already been on this planet for millions of years. And we have only consumed milk for a maximum of 0.01 million years.

 

This means that we did not drink a single drop of milk from other animals in more than 99% of human existence; in our entire development from ape to modern human being, we never needed animals' milk. 1.6 mllion years ago there were already humans well over 6 feet tall, and with apparently very strong bone structures.Some argue that our prehistoric diet contained more calcium, but that is simply not true.

 

Phosphorus is important, but you also need magnesium, boron, zinc, vitamin D and vitamin A

 

You can get all of these nutrients in supplements, but I prefer to get them the way Nature intended—packaged all together in food! Lower in animal protein, vegetarian diets are associated with significantly higher BMD(bone mineral density)!

 

And because our natural plant foods, on the average, contain about as much calcium as mother's milk, it is absolutely impossible that these natural foods contain too little calcium. Calcium in mg / 100 g

 

226 Hazelnuts

 

140 Organic Egg yolk

 

132 Brazil nuts

 

96 Olives, Extra-Virgin Olive oil and green olives

 

87 Raw walnuts

 

54 Figs

 

44 Black berries

 

40 Raspberries

 

20 Coconut

 

18 Grapes

 

16 Apricot

 

16 Pineapple

 

14 Plum

 

13 Salmon (alaskan)

 

12 Mackerel

 

11 Watermelon

 

10 Avocado

 

9 Banana

 

6 Muskmelon

 

Exercise If osteoporosis was about a lack of exercise, all healthy but physically inactive people would have osteoporosis, which is not the case. That is why bone-loss with age cannot be explained by declining physical activity levels.

 

Exercise may cause microfractures which stimulates the osteoblasts to increase their activity. Logically, then exercise also increases the death rate of osteoblasts. (excessive exercise may be detrimental)

 

Taken from: “Healing Power of Herbs” with Dr. John Heinerman “Aging Without Growing Old” with Judy Lindbergh McFarland “Nature’s Miracle Tonics” with Laurel Dewey, “The Humorous Herbalist”- Ms. Dewey’s column appears in newspapers and magazines nationwide.

 

Diana Gonzalez

 

 

 

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying - the longer a problem is carried, the heavier it gets. Don't take things too seriously - live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.

-Unknown