Bone Health Spotlight: MacaANTI-AGING MECHANISM: Reversing and preventing bone loss
USE: Reducing bone loss, restoring facial features, strengthening spine and hips
STARRING: Prunes, onions, fenugreek, fennel, maca, boron, fennel essential oil
Looking young is no longer about softening fine lines or filling out wrinkles. Even cosmetic surgeons know that stretching the skin during a face-lift cannot conceal the drastic effects of bone loss and bone remodeling that occur with age. This produces visible aging that no makeup, cream, cosmetic procedure, or filler can restore or realistically simulate to resemble its natural contours.
Bone loss can be prevented, and halted. Bone can even be regrown! Bone is alive—every day, bone is both lost and built. You can see it and you can feel it. Age-related bone loss doesn’t just lead to a stooping back or broken limbs. Its effects are visible in your face, which dramatically changes its shape as the years pass by. You can see the loss of bone mass in the cheek and eye areas. This type of bone loss produces under-eye bags. Bone loss in the jaw area alters your profile. Bone mass lost anywhere in your skeleton, the very structure of your body, leads to catastrophic loss of support for muscle, fat, and skin, producing sagging and wrinkling. Some surgeons advocate cheek implants, and new procedures involving the breaking and resetting of jawbones are being perfected to correct the loss of facial bone mass, but the underlying bone structure is not improved by these surgical techniques. Facial bone will remain as thin as it was before these surgical interventions. Unless steps are taken to stop bone loss, and to build up existing bone, aging will lead to further erosion of facial structure as bone continues to thin and degrade.
Bone loss also feels bad. Just as wrinkles are a sign that you need to anti-age your skin, and hot flashes signal the need to increase your estrogenic activity, sore, loose teeth and lower back pain indicate that your bones are in trouble. The great news is that raising hormones to optimum levels using natural foods, herbs, and supplements thickens bone. Doing all you can to maintain and restore bone mass is necessary to your looks and quality of life.
You can return your vulnerable bones to their youthful strength and flexibility by following the instructions given in this chapter, so that you look and move like your younger self.
Severe bone loss can lead to osteoporosis. As we have seen, bone is live, active tissue that is broken down and repaired daily. When you are young, bone growth is greater than bone loss. But as you age, bone loss accelerates, and bone growth slows down or even stops altogether. This process eventually produces a condition characterized by holes or spaces between the solid parts of the bone, making the bone porous. Osteoporosis is the medical term for the thinning of bone that results when the process of breaking bone down outweighs the rate at which it is repaired and rebuilt.
Osteoporosis is one of the most common and well-known consequences of aging. In the five to seven years following menopause, women can lose up to 20 percent of their bone density, and approximately nine million people in the United States have osteoporosis, which occurs in all ethnic groups. People with osteoporosis break bones—commonly, the wrist, spine, hip, leg, or arm. This typically happens with minimum impact, so a person with osteoporosis can break a bone simply by sneezing, hugging or being hugged, bumping into furniture, or stepping off a curb. Fortunately, osteoporosis can be prevented and reversed, even if you are already a sufferer.
Cellular and hormonal factors play a role in osteoporosis. Since much of osteoporosis is due to hormonal decline, restoring hormonal function will prevent bone loss and replace bone that has already been lost due to low hormone levels. Estrogen is the main hormone involved, but other hormones like progesterone are also involved. Cellular factors involving minerals and biochemical mechanisms that act in concert with hormones also play a significant part in protecting and restoring lost bone mass. Elemi, a little-known essential oil, has been helpful in speeding up the healing of bone injuries in my practice, where I deal with many martial artists, and the aftermath of their competitions and training. I suggest that you mix elemi into a facial preparation to firm up skin and benefit your facial bone structure, but remember to also use it on your hip bones, shinbones, and forearms.
Bone maintenance and building are complex processes involving several hormones and many nutrients, which is great news, because naturals are complex, affect several hormones at once, and contain a vast range of bone-beneficial nutrients. Although we usually think of bone density as a marker of bone health, because medical tests only measure bone density, there is one other hugely important measure of bone health: bone flexibility. Flexibility is essential in the prevention of fractures, for example. So using natural agents to support various aspects of bone health is integral to having strong bones throughout your life.
Estrogenic activity maintains and rebuilds bone mass, so if you’re perimenopausal or going through menopause and experiencing hot flashes, you are also losing bone. Increasing your intake of estrogenically active herbs like fennel, hops, fenugreek, and evening primrose oil then becomes vital to preserving bone mass, and restoring any that has been lost. Fenugreek and fennel, for instance, have estrogenic activity, and they also contain a compound called diosgenin, which builds new bone. These herbs increase beneficial hormonal activity while decreasing cancer risk. And while synthetic estrogen has been shown to maintain bone, it does not build new bone or restore bone mass. It was once thought that synthetic estrogen in the form of estradiol was the only answer, but natural compounds such as diosgenin increase osteogenesis, too, and actually make new bone.
Let’s pause a moment on the term diosgenin, since this will come up again in later chapters. Diosgenin is a compound found in plants that possesses hormonal activity, acting primarily, but not exclusively, as an estrogen, in a wide range of mechanisms. The best way to obtain diosgenin is by taking diosgenin-rich herbs, such as fenugreek, fennel, sarsaparilla, boron, and maca. Diosgenin and diosgenin-containing herbs can achieve what synthetic estrogen cannot—they stop bone loss, and they stimulate the formation of new bone. They increase blood supply to the bone, which is a necessary condition for repair and growth; increase bone matrix protein synthesis; and increase the formation of calcium deposits that leads to increased bone formation. Diosgenin increases blood supply as it enhances bone growth, and it does this via estrogenic stimulation. Based on studies that used synthetic estrogen, researchers thought that estrogen only maintained bone density following menopause, but experiments with diosgenin indicate that this compound produces bone growth at least partially via its estrogenic activity. In fact, diosgenin acts as a precursor to estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
Herbs such as fenugreek and fennel contain diosgenin, which inhibits metalloproteinases and increases collagen in the skin. Wild yam is the most well-known diosgenin-containing herb, but it does not suit all women. Some women find it makes them feel blue and weepy. It can also reduce your breast size. Sarsaparilla, on the other hand, also contains diosgenin, but it makes you feel energized, and enhances breast growth. These herbs contain other compounds that add to their beneficial effects, but it is their diosgenin content that impacts bone building. Diosgenin builds bone everywhere in your body, including the jaw, which is essential to bone mass and structure. Diosgenin also helps keep your teeth strong, white, and healthy. Tooth loss in later years is very much a consequence of lost jawbone density, though gum disease also plays a part. Interestingly, gum shrinkage is the result of declining hormone levels, particularly estrogen. All vitamins and minerals mentioned in this chapter, which help with bone strength, also strengthen teeth.
Hormones are the primary factors involved in bone growth and bone loss, but lifestyle and diet can affect bone health, too. These include alcoholism, smoking, being very thin and tall, exercising too much, anorexia, a sedentary lifestyle, and a diet high in sucrose. Medication such as anticonvulsant medications, benzodiazepines, steroid medications such as asthma inhalers, and too-high doses of medications for hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism can also produce bone loss.
Our knowledge about bone health has greatly advanced in the past two decades. We now know that minerals, fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins play a role in preventing bone loss and maintaining bone mass as we age. Here are, in no particular order, some of the major participants in bone health: calcium, magnesium, boron, vitamin D, vitamin K, vitamin C, silicon, omega-3 fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids, manganese, copper, zinc, sulfur, and iodine. A pill that contained every nutrient necessary for healthy bones would be impossible to swallow! Fortunately you can combine foods, herbs, and supplements to obtain powerful bone-building benefits. And the sooner you begin to care for your bones with these substances, the better. It is never too early or too late to start. However, while a forty-five-year-old woman whose bone loss is still in its very early stages will be able to improve her bone mass quite rapidly, an eighty-year-old woman who has lost a great deal of her bone mass will find that improvement takes longer.
Magnesium, vitamin K, and hops are a few agents worth highlighting here. Magnesium is involved in more than three hundred biochemical reactions in your body and plays a vital role in energy production and bone building. Vitamin K, from green vegetables, is also vital for strong bones. Beer builds strong bones, too, as it’s a good source of silica, yet another mineral vital for healthy bones. Most beers also contain hops, an estrogenic herb. This estrogenic activity very effectively offsets the fall in the sex hormone estradiol that occurs in the years before, during, and after menopause, so that you can retain more bone structure. Green tea, black tea, barley, chicory, and cocoa also possess valuable bone-building properties, so include them in your daily diet.
Bone Health Spotlight: MacaThe human body is very complex, and the interactions between hormones are highly dynamic. The ideal situation is one where bone building and bone repair outweigh bone breakdown. This is exactly what happens during childhood and early adulthood, and continues until we reach thirty years old. After this age, bone breakdown begins to outweigh bone repair and bone building, a process that speeds up with aging. As we have just seen, this is by no means inevitable, even though such an imbalance is so common as to be considered normal. It is not normal; rather, it is the result of less than ideal food and lifestyle choices that cause bone to be broken down in order to restore acidic blood to neutral.
Women’s low levels of estrogen and progesterone after menopause depletes bone mass in their bodies, including the jaw, which changes facial structure. Estrogenic activity maintains bone, and if this activity is coupled with the actions of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant, lost bone is restored.
Maca, or Lepidium meyenii, is a root vegetable with astonishing anti-aging powers. Maca contains many compounds with antioxidant properties coupled with complex, highly beneficial hormone activity. This makes it a bone-building dynamo! It increases fertility in both sexes, but its action on the sex hormones can seem confusing. In some experiments, it possesses definite estrogenic activity and increases uterine weight, yet in others it seems to be progestogenic, or progesterone-increasing, which in this case is good news for us because progesterone is a very effective bone builder. It is considered to be the major bone-trophic (bone-growing) hormone.
It is possible that the wide-ranging effects of maca are also due to a novel mechanism that has not yet been fully elucidated. It seems highly probable that maca may act via the brain, in a way that is similar to the action of Panax ginseng—by stimulating the pituitary gland, for example, which then activates hormonal systems in the body, particularly the ovaries in women and the testes in men, to produce the relevant sex hormones. This would explain why the effects of maca supplementation often do not become fully obvious until the herb has been taken for at least four months.
Maca increases collagen IV and integrin synthesis, which makes your skin firm. It stimulates hair growth and forms the protective coating around the hair shaft, making your hair visibly thicker. Maca protects you against the detrimental effects of stress, increases your energy and memory, and acts as an antidepressant and antioxidant, even if you’ve gone through menopause. Maca is very effective at stimulating ovulation, greatly increasing the numbers of maturing egg follicles. What’s more, maca is very effective at protecting your skin from sun damage, whether from the inside out or applied directly to the skin as a topical treatment. Maca protects the liver and prevents breast cancer. All of these effects are very valuable and highly anti-aging. But maca also strengthens bones via an estrogenic mechanism even after menopause.
Bone Health Spotlight: BoronBoron is a mineral responsible for normal growth and plays a pivotal role in preventing and reversing osteoporosis. Excitingly, boron raises 17-beta-estradiol levels in postmenopausal women, an effect that makes this mineral a vitally important supplement in any anti-aging program. Boron is so effective at increasing the concentration of estradiol in postmenopausal women that it can be used as a very effective alternative to synthetic hormone replacement therapy. On top of raising estradiol, boron stimulates parathyroid hormone. In fact, boron appears to have the same relationship to this hormone that iodine has to the thyroid. The four parathyroid glands are situated in the neck near the thyroid gland. The parathyroids secrete the parathyroid hormone, which is responsible for keeping calcium within an optimal narrow range. In cases of boron deficiency, the parathyroids overreact and increase their parathyroid hormone output, which stimulates osteoclasts to break down bone to release calcium. This causes bones and teeth to lose calcium.
Inadequate boron intake impairs bone repair and formation, which leads to decreased bone volume. Sufficient boron intake increases bone growth, or osteogenesis. Boron increases osteoblast activity; osteoblasts are cells that make new bone. We are not simply talking of preventing bone loss, because boron actually thickens bone—even bone damaged and thinned by osteoporosis!
Boron makes old bones young again, which is a truly wonderful feat. It also protects your teeth from decay, keeping your jaw strong and your teeth firmly embedded and healthy. Crumbling, decayed, and loose teeth play a huge role in malnutrition in elderly people. And that strong jaw and youthful cheekbones and forehead mean your facial features and profile will remain their best. Facial bone thinning typically flattens facial features and alters the look of a face beyond recognition.
Bone Health Spotlight: PrunesPrunes are a rich source of boron and a polyphenol. In a study comparing two groups of women, one group supplemented their diet with ten prunes a day, while the other ate dried apple. The results? The prune eaters had significantly higher bone density! A compound found in apple, phloridzin, has huge benefits for bone health, but it may be that it is not present in large concentrations in dried apples. In the study, eating prunes caused increased bone density while dried apples did not, or did not do so to the same extent. True anti-aging power comes from knowing which fruits, vegetables, herbs, or other natural substances are best for which particular aging mechanism. Because while prunes did better than dried apples here, researchers would have seen great performance from apple juice, apple cider vinegar, and apple polyphenols. So when comparing dried fruit, prunes are better than apples, but if you want overall bone health, other apple products can do wonders, so do include them in your diet. Apple polyphenols are also effective at stimulating aquaporins, the pores found in cell membranes that regulate water and fat content inside your cells. Aquaporins become less numerous and active with age, resulting in dry skin and weight gain, and apple polyphenols both stimulate that process and revive aquaporins.
The amazing benefits of prunes on bones are enhanced even further when they are eaten with fructooligosaccharides, also known as oligofructans or oligofructose. These are sugars found in bananas, agave, chicory, and onions. Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) can be used as a sweetener. They stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut, producing increased well-being, health, and protection against infectious diseases. Healthy gut bacteria also contribute to a positive mental outlook, decreased depression, and less fatigue. When FOS and prunes are taken together, the result is one of the most powerful bone builders around! It is almost impossible to avoid some gastrointestinal discomfort in the form of a very bloated, painful stomach when fructooligosaccharides are taken in concentrated powder or liquid form, so it is much better to eat them as bananas or chicory coffee, a beverage that also contains melanoidins, yet another amazingly effective compound.
Bone Health Spotlight: OnionsOnions contain polyphenols and fructooligosaccharides and are a rich source of sulfur—all necessary for bone health. Onions are good for the heart and the brain, they make bruises vanish if they’re applied directly to them, and in the right preparation they get rid of wrinkles and stiff joints and even regrow hair. These humble little bulbs also regrow bone, making you look as great as you did when you were young! You can eat onions fresh, or you can take onion powder daily to build bone. Onion powder is remarkably effective at stimulating osteoblast activity even when estrogen is low, which occurs after menopause, and even when bone is exposed to cigarette smoke.
Finally, onions, particularly red onions, are also a very good source of quercetin, which prevents the formation of pyrimidine dimers after sun exposure and prevents metastatic cancer.
Bone Health Spotlight: QuercetinQuercetin binds to estrogen receptors and prevents bone breakdown, particularly after menopause. Osteoclasts are bone cells that break down bone as it is needed to release calcium. Osteoclasts are normally balanced by osteoblasts, which build new bone. After menopause, osteoclasts are very active, but the osteoblasts decline in number, and the ones that remain become progressively less and less active. The result is thin, brittle bone very prone to fracturing. This deterioration happens very rapidly after menopause. As you saw at the beginning of this chapter, in five years or so following menopause a woman can lose up to 20 percent of her bone mass. The following contain quercetin:
onions, particularly red onions
onion powder (without salt)
black tea
apples, apple juice, and apple cider vinegar
red wine
berries such as blueberries and strawberries
cocoa powder and high cocoa chocolate
chili peppers
capers
Bone Health Spotlight: KudzuKudzu possesses potent estrogenic activity. It compares impressively with the female sex hormone estradiol, exhibiting 80 to 90 percent of this estrogen’s activity while being cancer protective. Kudzu enhances breast and uterus growth. Breasts, the vagina, and the uterus atrophy after menopause, as do skin, muscle, hair, and bone. Kudzu is remarkably effective at preventing and reversing these aging effects of low hormone levels. Kudzu, together with Pueraria mirifica, a closely related herb, contains puerarin. This compound is responsible for kudzu’s estrogenic activity. Research shows that puerarin has astonishing effects on osteoblasts, increasing and maturing their cell numbers and in this way promoting new bone growth. And while kudzu has powerful beneficial estrogenic activity, it also protects against estrogen-sensitive cancers. It can also help with endometriosis, a condition linked to errant estrogenic activity.
Kudzu is a good source of genistein and daidzein, two plant hormones with estrogenic activity that are also found in soy. Genistein and daidzein have powerful bone-building effects. Kudzu is a great alternative to soy for people who avoid soy products. Soy builds bone, makes your skin young, and grows hair due to its genistein and daidzein content, and kudzu achieves all this, too.
Some sugars, depending on various factors, can be either bad or good for bone health. Let’s tackle the sour news first, since the prevalence of a high-sugar, or high-sucrose, diet is such a pressing concern in America. Sucrose is the correct term for what we know as sugar. Sucrose is a disaccharide, which means that each molecule of sucrose is made up of two sugars, glucose and fructose (they are monosaccharides). Sucrose’s color doesn’t change its chemical composition, so it can be white, brown, or the colors of muscovado and molasses sugar. Refined sugar, specifically, causes skin and bones to age alarmingly fast and sugar substitutes like aspartame stimulate neurons, frequently overstimulating and killing them. One of the reasons sugar leads to bone thinning is that it doesn’t contain minerals. Minerals have an alkalizing effect on the blood, whereas protein and sugar make the blood acidic. In order to make the blood neutral, rather than acidic, something alkaline is needed. Minerals are alkaline, the major one of these being calcium. If there is no calcium in the foods you eat, for example when you eat a sugary cake, your bones are broken down to release calcium, which then neutralizes the acidity. Magnesium is also a very important alkalizing mineral, which is one of the reasons it protects you against bone loss. Boron, which is found only in trace amounts in the body, can reverse bone loss and form new bone. What’s more, the bone cells responsible for new bone formation, called osteoblasts, possess insulin receptors, and glucose actually stimulates osteoblasts to form new bone—but only if the glucose levels do not rise too high. High blood sugar levels, as in diabetes or a high dietary intake of sugar, can actually lead to bone breakdown. Cinnamon, fenugreek, and oats are all very effective at keeping blood sugar levels within safe limits.
Surprisingly, not all sugar is harmful to bones. Glucosamine sulfate, a supplement that can help repair damaged cartilage in knee joints, is synthesized in the body from glucose, the amino acid glutamine, and sulfur. Hyaluronic acid is one of the most important glucosaminoglycans, compounds that contain glucose. As we saw earlier in this book, hyaluronic acid is a highly effective hydrating molecule. Trehalose is another sugar that has been found to have extraordinary health benefits, including bone building. Trehalose is found in mushrooms and honey. Both of these foods firm and tone the complexion. Molasses is a mineral-rich sweetener that benefits bone health. Both honey and molasses possess estrogenic activity and contain minerals, including boron, and a range of B vitamins, all of which possess hormonal activity and facilitate the growth of new bone.
Exercise plays a huge part in building fresh bone. Inactivity leads to loss of bone mass, and this process is shockingly rapid. Astronauts have measurable bone loss after a few weeks in space. The pull of gravity on your bones is essential exercise, and the resultant stress on bones keeps them strong. When this stress is absent, bones become thinner very quickly. Walking, running, and weight training all stress and strengthen the bones in your body. They will help your facial bones to a certain extent, but to rebuild your cheekbones and jawbones, you might like to add gentle knuckle tapping every day. The process only takes a few minutes, but it will go a long way toward keeping your face looking young. Simply make loose fists with your hands and gently tap along your cheekbones and jaw and over your forehead with the knuckles of your folded fingers. Gentle, repetitive tapping is all that is needed. You can also gently tap along your upper brow bone and the fleshy area of your cheeks.
Please choose preparations based on ease of availability, cost, and personal preference. One is sufficient for treating this anti-aging mechanism, but two or more can speed improvements or improve a particularly neglected situation. Each one uses an ingredient discussed in this chapter. Enjoy!
Fenugreek and fennel: Take four teaspoons each of fenugreek and fennel powder per day. Divide this into two or three doses, if you wish. Stir the powder into apple juice or water and drink.
Boron: Take 3–9 mg of boron per day. Solgar makes a useful boron supplement.
Maca: Take four teaspoons of powdered maca a day. You don’t need to use the gelatinized version. You can add yogurt or juice to the powder, stir well, and drink or eat immediately before it thickens.
Prunes, bananas, and onions: Ten prunes a day, one banana, and an onion will build great bones for you. The onion can be fried in olive or safflower oil. You can also use pure onion powder, stirred into water. You may want to have a little yogurt after, in case the onion gives you indigestion. Onion powder gently fried in olive oil makes an excellent base for chilis, curries, and tomato-based sauces.
Kudzu and Clearspring-brand kudzu starch: Add two teaspoons of the powder to a mug with apple juice, stir well, and drink before it thickens. You can cook with kudzu, too, if you’d like. Tempura batter is traditionally made with kudzu, but make sure you consume the equivalent of two teaspoons of kudzu, which can be a bit tricky if you don’t know how much is in the batter.
Apple juice: Get your dose of phloridzin from eight ounces of apple juice a day.
Beer: I am not advocating irresponsible drinking, but one bottle of good beer a day can produce stronger bones. The darker beers tend to have more silica, barley, and malt, so you’ll be getting melanoidins in addition to the estrogenic properties of barley and hops.
Vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium: Take 400–1,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day. Plain goat’s milk or low-fat or whole-milk yogurt is a great source of calcium. Magnesium supplements should be in the range of 200–400 mg of elemental magnesium, whether citrate, chelated, or another form.
Face tapping: Tap gently along the bones of your face once a day.
Elemi: Add thirty drops of this essential oil or the oil of your choice to an oil base. If you can’t find this amazing but rare essential oil, you can substitute myrrh or frankincense essential oils for a comparable result.