Why the best time to focus on increasing your bone mass reservoir is now
Aleksandra Horwood, Wellbeing Academy
Trauma-Informed Mind-Body Integration | Therapist & Senior Yoga/Mindfulness Educator | Cultivating Resilience & Wellbeing
Yoga: Another way to prevent osteoporosis?
More than 200 000 000 people suffer from osteoporosis.
A dozen yoga poses, performed daily, may increase bone density.
Yoga can improve muscle strength, balance, posture and body awareness, which can all help with preventing falls. This is a key goal in reducing fracture risk, as falls are the number one cause of broken bones in people with osteoporosis.
You may have become accustomed to thinking that only common weight-bearing exercises—walking, running, jumping, and lifting—provide enough stress on your bones to maintain or increase their density. So a scientific paper titled "Twelve-Minute Daily Yoga Routine Reverses Osteoporotic Bone Loss" came as a surprise. And it appeared to offer women another option to build bone.
What the study found
The researchers who designed the study noted that yoga's established benefits—including better balance and coordination—protect against falling, a major cause of osteoporotic fractures. They wanted to determine whether the yoga poses they selected might also increase bone density by imposing force on the spine and hips.
They recruited 741 people who joined the study between 2005 and 2015. The participants were asked to submit dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans of their hips and spines, and other lab tests, at the beginning of the study. They also received DVDs with instructions for the yoga poses and were asked to log their yoga activity online.
The logs indicated that 227 participants, 202 of whom were women, practiced the routine at least every other day for two years. Their average age was 68 when they entered the study, and 83% had lower-than-normal bone density. The DEXA scans they submitted at the end of the study showed significant increases in bone density in the spine. None of the participants reported bone fractures or other injuries caused by doing yoga.
Study participants were advised to seek an instructor of Iyengar yoga, which emphasizes body alignment and breath control.
I teach weekly a group class and offer bespoke sessions.
https://happystance-yogatherapy.as.me/osteoporosis