Bone Health
 Your bone health can have a great effect on your overall health. While they may seem like hard, static parts of your body, your bones are living tissue that can develop serious conditions if not properly cared for, just like any other part of your body. Your bone health dictates your nutrition, your strength, and your mobility, and ignoring the specific needs of your bones can result in painful, debilitating illness.
Some of the conditions that can affect your bone health include:
- Bone loss - Your body breaks down and builds new bones in a process called resorption. When bone is broken down and nutrients are used faster than they can be replaced, bone loss can result, which in turn can lead to other, more serious conditions.
- Osteopenia - A middle ground between bone loss and osteoporosis, osteopenia is a condition in which bone density is lower than the average, making bones more susceptible to fracture and the development of osteoporosis.
- Osteoporosis - Literally meaning "porous bones," this condition occurs when bone density is so low that bones lack nutrients and structure. Filled with tiny holes, the bones are weak, brittle, and can easily break.
Maintaining optimum bone health is important for your entire body, since they store nutrients used by many of the systems in your body. By not providing your bones the nutrition they need at a young age, you leave them vulnerable to bone loss and other conditions later in life. Prevention is the best medicine, so eating a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D, as well exercising and following the recommendations of your doctor, can help keep your bone health as good as possible.
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