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5 surprising things making your bones brittle (slideshow)
2. When your weight goes up or down, breaks and fractures go up
A study of more than 120,000 postmenopausal women who were part of a study called the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study and Clinical Trials shows that changes in how much you weigh, both weight loss and gain, can increase your risk for breaking a bone. The 11-year study included women who were aged 50-79 at the beginning of the research.
The data in the study showed that after 11 years, women who lost weight (more than 5 percent of their body weight) ran a 65 percent increase in the chances of breaking a hip. They also had a 9 percent increase in the chances of a fracture in an arm and a 30 percent increase of a spinal or pelvis fracture.
Those who gained weight ran a 10 percent increased chance of arm fractures and an 18 percent higher risk of leg fractures.
Juliet Compston, a professor of bone medicine at Cambridge University, warns that if your weight changes, you need to take “measures to prevent bone loss.” Those can include weight-bearing exercises and eating plenty of leafy vegetables which contain nutrients that support the health of the skeleton.
