I have been diagnosed with osteoporosis. What does that mean?

Osteoporosis presents itself very subtly in the body and its changes can be marked by dry skin, brittle finger nails, sometimes receding gums and lower back pain. Of course there can be other things like spontaneous fractures or easily occurring fractures, shrinkage in height and, for older women, the appearance of a “dowager’s hump”.

Osteoporosis means brittle or porous bone. Osteoporosis is NOT a disease of calcium deficiency. It is a disease where old bone absorption exceeds new bone formation. And there are many factors that can help us to moderate this disease. Exercise, vitamins such as vitamin C and D, anti-oxidants help, as do healthy levels of progesterone (for women) and testosterone (for men) to promote new bone formation.

Contrary to popular belief, magnesium rather than calcium is a much bigger player and far more important in maintaining bone integrity. It’s a fact, osteoporosis occurs in people who eat plenty of calcium just as well as in people who don’t eat much at all. To meet your daily requirement of calcium is quite easy. You only need the equivalent of about 600mg a day, which is a cup of spinach and two tablespoons of cottage cheese.

Dr Lee gives a perfect analogy of the two phases involved in keeping our bones strong. He suggests we think of the two players in bone integrity as ‘pacmen’. One type of ‘pacman’ is the osteoclasts that moves to various parts of your bone to find old bone and dissolve it away (bone resorption). Once this is completed, the ‘pacmen’ called osteoblasts move on it to start building new bone (new bone formation). Then your body goes into a resting phase where your bones remain good for a certain length of time before it gets old and crystallises and our pacmen get back to work.

Osteoporosis is often referred to as a disease of estrogen deficiency, and is usually medicallised as a disease occurring at menopause. The fact that a female’s bone loss starts in her mid thirties when estrogen levels are high indicates that estrogen does not totally prevent bone loss. Estrogen will slow the rate of bone loss by slightly poisoning the ‘osteoclasts’ thereby slowing down resorption, but it DOES NOT reverse it. What does appear to correlate here is progesterone levels.

When a woman reaches her mid thirties she may fail to ovulate every period leading to a decline in progesterone production. It’s interesting that osteoporosis begins to set in around the time a woman begins to experience a deficiency in progesterone. Further still, osteoporosis appears to respond favourably when progesterone levels are brought back into balance.

Osteoporosis is presented by the media as a health risk associated with hormonal and/or dietary imbalance that needs medical intervention or correction, depending on who’s endorsing the research and/or advertising. Women are, understandably driven by fear, fueled by drug companies and in many cases the dairy industry, in the absence of publicity on the success of reversing, improving or restoring bone regrowth naturally without the use of bone builders, calcium supplements, dairy products, and HRT.

Natural hormone replacement to promote bone building has not been embraced by the medical fraternity. Nor are there any trials at this time to support this approach. There is, however, very strong evidence of trials using testosterone for bone building, proving there are indeed testosterone receptors on osteoblasts (bone builders). Evidence suggests this is also the case for progesterone receptors, we’re just lacking trials.

So many women think that once they have been diagnosed with osteoporosis it is like a cancer, that there is nothing they can do about it and it is going to lead to further deterioration and visualise premature old age - shrinking height, fractured hips, immobility and retarded lifestyle.

We have seen women more upset with a diagnosis of osteoporosis than when told they have breast lumps and possible cancer, and may need aspiration and even mastectomies. Clearly, they panic, perhaps because they are not expecting a diagnosis of osteoporosis at such an early age.

As stated, there is little positive emphasis put on what we can do to improve and even prevent osteoporosis. The good news is if you have porous bone, you have a unique opportunity to fill your bone with new, stronger bone. After all, our bones are living cells that are, like other cells in our body, constantly breaking down and rebuilding.

Dr Lee, who has tracked his patients with osteoporosis over 15 years makes the following statement: “If you add estrogen replacement therapy, you will avoid further loss and pick up about 1-2% but that’s it. If you get yourself onto natural progesterone therapy, you can increase bone mineral density (BMD) by about 15%.” And Dr Lee had the stats to prove it.

Many younger women are now presenting with a diagnosis of osteoporosis, possibly because of the fact there are more women undergoing earlier bone density scanning as a result of post procedure hysterectomy, etc. Overall, an early diagnosis of osteoporosis means these women are getting an opportunity to do something about their deteriorating bones. In our mother’s day, bone readings were not routine. It wasn?t seen to be necessary until a woman actually went through menopause, broke her hip, or showed signs of spinal shrinkage (dowager’s hump).

We also have reason to believe we’re not making the progesterone our grandmothers made half a century ago. This deficiency in progesterone coupled with our unhealthy diet, our sedentary lifestyle, and even over-use of some medications are leaving many of us exposed to the early onset of osteoporosis.

High levels of stress results in high levels of cortisol output, and this cortisol can accelerate osteoporosis. That’s why it’s important to learn to manage you stress levels. This is also why cortisone-based drugs will render progesterone therapy ineffective as cortisol competes with progesterone at the receptor sites.

Cortisol is basically an anti-progesterone. We mentioned the action of cortisol here in relation to bone building. But we do mention stress levels throughout our book in relation to other situations, and how it interferes with the work of progesterone in the body. Further, taking the drug Cortisone in the treatment of other conditions is likewise mentioned in relation to progesterone.

If you have started to show bone degeneration, it can be reversed. It CAN be corrected and it can be improved. But we emphasise that it will not improve and reverse by ignoring the situation. Osteoporosis can often be assisted with physiological doses (15-20mg) of progesterone and, in some cases a little dab of natural estrogen and/or natural testosterone for the women that are deficient in these types of hormones. This is where a hormone profile is vital to assess your levels. Request that your doctor, in this case, examines all your hormone level including progesterone and testosterone which he is not normally inclined to do.

Just as importantly, weight bearing exercise, diet, vitamins and minerals, lifestyle and stress control certainly play the equally important part as does natural progesterone therapy in treating osteoporosis. Far too many women are embracing natural progesterone for bone building wrongly thinking it’s the total solution, without a commitment to long-term lifestyle changes. Be realistic here. Progesterone, while a very important component of the jigsaw, by itself cannot possibly maximise the full benefits without incorporating an holistic approach to osteoporosis.