Osteoporosis
Why is it so many people are getting osteoporosis and osteopenia? Isn’t everyone drinking their milk, cheese and yogurt? Don’t these foods have a ton of calcium in them to build healthy bones?
Ok – so let’s do some basic chemistry. Let’s take a glass of vinegar (any kind will do for this experiment) and put in a chicken bone. If you don’t have a chicken bone, a hard-boiled egg will do just fine. Put the chicken bone or the egg into the glass. Leave the chicken bone in the glass for a few days, or the egg overnight. What happens to the bone/shell? It dissolves. This happens because the vinegar is acidic, and it pulls the calcium out of the bone/shell to do what nature intended – to obtain a perfect pH balance.
So how does this happen in our bodies? There are foods that once we eat them, and digest and “burn” or utilize them, they turn into an acid residue or ash. There are other foods that once we eat them, digest and “burn” them, they create and alkaline residue or ash.
The largest acid producer in our bodies is stress. Every time we get stressed we create more acid in our bodies. If we have an acid residue reserve in our bodies – we are just making our body more acidic – similar to the glass of vinegar - and you can see from the experiment what this does to our bones? If we have a nice alkaline reserve, this helps to neutralize the acid. This not only helps to prevent the osteoporosis from happening, but also helps to prevent disease and energetically does not attract more acid or stressful environments. Isn’t that cool!
So I know your next question is “What are the acid and alkaline ash producing foods?” This is the part most people don’t like to hear. All meat, most grains (with the exception of Quinoa, Millet, Amaranth, and Wild Rice) are all acidic. So are all fake sweeteners, coffee, beans, wheat, alcohol, soft drinks and milk products.
Alkaline ash producing foods are all raw vegetables, and most fruits (except for plums, fruit juice, sour cherries, cranberries, prunes, blueberries, and rhubarb.)
So does this mean you are never to eat acid ash producing foods? NO – it means ask yourself truly “how out of balance are your reserves?” If your body doesn’t have an adequate alkaline reserve, you’re probably going to end up with some bone issues. In addition, a body that is too acidic also is typically riddled with disease as well. So, if you don’t have an alkaline reserve it may behoove you to start to make one. You will fine huge benefits not just for your osteoporosis issues, but also other health benefits as well.
I had two young men (under 20 years old) visit my store, a few months ago, at different times. They both had broken backs, wore back braces, they were in pain, their backs where not healing adequately since their injuries had happened several months earlier. I explained these issues to them, and suggested that they eat only alkaline foods for 1 week. They did that and along with a few augmenting supplements were able to eliminate their pain, remove their back braces and heal their backs effectively. Then I told them now that they are feeling better, if they want to prevent future issues, and make their bones strong for the future, it would benefit them to eat alkaline foods 75-80% of the time and the acid foods 20-25% of the time each day. Keeping your pH balanced and your diet balanced in this way can help to not only reverse but prevent osteoporosis in the first place.
There are other processes that you need to make sure are also balanced in your body to help with osteoporosis also.
Iodine
Iodine is so important to our bodies. It is supposed to be in every cell of our bodies. It helps to balance pH, helps our body naturally detox, prevents fungus and parasites and helps us sleep and gives us energy – again if it is in our body in a balanced form, it can make all the difference for many peoples’ health. Iodine is a halogen, as is bromine, chlorine, and fluoride. But out of these, iodine has the lightest molecular weight. That means that when you get exposed to chlorine from your tap and shower, and when you get exposed to fluoride from your tap, shower, toothpaste, and mouthwash, and when you get exposed to bromine from pesticides, pharmaceutical drugs and the bread you eat (read the package, most are bromine “enriched”), you are displacing iodine out of your body. If you do this enough, it will cause your pH to be off, and will inhibit the proper absorption of calcium and other minerals that you need to build proper bones. You can read more about this in the book Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It by Dr. David Brownstein, M.D.
Enzymes
Our bodies use enzymes to digest food, eliminate toxins, repair tissues and to hold calcium in our bones. We are all born with a “bucket” full of enzymes. When we eat raw food, we provide more enzymes to help us do these important body functions. But if we eat only “dead” food – which is food that is void of any enzymes, we deplete the enzymes that we have, preventing us from doing important bodily functions effectively. A raw carrot has enzymes – so that when you break it you hear the snap of the enzymes holding the molecules together. But a cooked carrot or an old carrot (that is in the bottom of your fridge because you didn’t eat it) is void of enzymes. As is all cooked meats, grains, etc. Another symptom of calcium not being absorbed properly is gallstones, kidney stones, and bone spurs. Getting the proper amount of enzymes helps to prevent these issues and can also help reverse them effectively along with the other items mentioned in this article.
Vitamin D
All of a sudden in the past year many of my customers are coming in telling me that their doctors are telling them they are deficient in Vitamin D. Vitamin D is in all green vegetables, fish/fish oil, and the best source is the sun. Oh, but that is right, we are supposed to wear sunscreen to prevent us from getting burned! So how do we properly get this important vitamin to help us utilized Calcium better. You can take a supplement, but you can also eat more vegetables and put more anti-oxidants on your skin and in your body, which not only prevent you from burning in the first place, but also help you absorb proper amounts of Vitamin D. We sell a spray that helps with this and more are coming onto the market because many people are worried about putting toxic chemicals from sunscreen on their skin.
There are other helpful minerals that help balance pH properly in the kidneys to help with proper calcium absorption. Silica for example is very beneficial and many people take Horsetail, because it is one of the highest natural silica sources. Also boron, which is high in chia seeds, and they are also high in calcium (18%) is also a great way to enjoy taking your calcium. We sell chia seeds, chia bars, chia chips, and I am sure more products will be developed with this incredibly nutritious little seed.
Calcium
There are different types of calcium. The most popular are calcium carbonate (from bones, rocks, shells, etc), calcium citrate (from fruits) and calcium amino acid chelate (also from plants and foods). All forms of calcium (except for the amino acid chelates) turn into calcium chloride (a harsh mineral salt that can cause diarrhea/constipation. The most absorbable is from plants. That does not mean that the others aren’t beneficial in some ways. They each have medicinal benefits to help specific conditions, but for a constant daily supplement, the amino acid chelates are the best choice. Even better said is eating vegetables high in calcium such as broccoli that gets you this naturally. Calcium is a dense mineral. Taking calcium carbonate (like from bones, sea shells, etc.) can shut down the proton pumps in our digestive system inhibiting the HCL (Hydrocloric Acid) production in the stomach, and it is this HCL that is responsible for breaking down calcium in the first place.
Other issues that can affect osteoporosis are glandular imbalances, especially thyroid (iodine is especially beneficial here as well), and parathyroid, and also lack of B vitamins (B12 specifically), and Essential Fatty Acids deficiencies.
Bound vs Unbound Calcium
The body can only take up so much calcium at one time and cannot deposit calcium to the bone unless it is bound calcium and most calcium supplements are hard to bind. To bind calcium you need certain lipids (fats) and B-12. It also requires silica and boron. Most calcium supplements do not have these nutrients in them, and most people don’t get enough of them from their regular diet. That is one reason chia seeds are so incredible. They contain high amounts of omega’s (lipids), high amounts of boron and a high amount of calcium. Add a B complex vitamin and some silica and you have an equation for building bones. Plants also are a good source of calcium as they have their own lipids built in. Some herbal companies sell calcium supplements made from 100% plants. This is an optimal way to get calcium.
Too much Calcium
Yes you can have too much calcium. If the calcium in your body is bound, it is absorbed into your bones; if it is unbound it will not be absorbed. Bound calcium is needed by the parathyroid to build bone. Excess unbound calcium alters how the parathyroid utilizes calcium. Phosphorus is an important component here also with the parathyroid too, and it is usually easily absorbed unless there are large quantities of unbound calcium that combine with the phosphate creating an insoluble calcium phosphate that is excreted from the bowels. 90% of calcium loss is from the bowels, and 10 % is from the urine. If you don’t bind calcium with lipids you can create a high percentage of unbound calcium and this is what deposits as gall stones, kidney stones, bone spurs and arterial plaque, etc. The B-12 is required to drive the calcium through the intestines. Many people come into our store and are taking the bare minimum of EFA’s (essential fatty acids), which probably isn’t helping a whole lot – when most time they should be taking much more to assist with this process.
Just like every other natural process in nature, if a body does not have balance in all of these things, biochemically it will not be able to build healthy bones.