B Vitamins for Osteoporosis: New Way to Battle Brittle Bones
When you’re thinking about vitamins, remember “B for bones.” It’s possible that certain B vitamins can help strengthen your bones and prevent osteoporosis.
Two recent studies suggest that high levels of the amino acid homocysteine is linked with broken bones. The good news is B vitamins help get rid of homocysteine.
How it works
The amino acid homocysteine is made from another amino acid, methionine, to help metabolize protein. When the process is complete, homocysteine should be turned back into methionine, but here’s the catch. It needs B vitamins to be converted back to its original form.
If you don’t have enough B vitamins to do the job, homocysteine can build up to dangerous levels, causing damage to your arteries — and possibly osteoporosis.
Researchers aren’t exactly sure what the connection between homocysteine and osteoporosis is. This is what they’ve come up with so far.
• Homocysteine interfereswith the ability of collagen to hold bones together.
• Since homocysteine is also linked with heart disease and weakened mental ability, people with these conditions may be more frail and fall down more often.
• Increased homocysteine might only be an indicator of poor nutrition. Other studies have shown that older women with a vitamin B12 deficiency are more prone to bone loss and fractures.
Beef up on B12
Whether it’s the homocysteine or the lack of nutrients that’s the problem, it will help if you make sure you’re getting enough B vitamins — and the best one to get in this case is B12.
“Homocysteine is a necessary part of metabolism,” says Sally Stabler, medical doctor and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. “Studies have shown that high levels of homocysteine are harmful in themselves, but high homocysteine can also point to vitamin B12 deficiency.”
Stabler, a leading researcher of homocysteine and B vitamins, says both vitamin B12 and folate are needed to change homocysteine into methionine.
“In the United States and Canada, people are eating a lot of folate in fortified grain products,” she says. “Therefore, high homocysteine is usually due to B12 deficiency. B6 is not usually a problem.”
The problem is absorption
Vitamin B12 is found naturally in animal foods, including meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and milk, as well as fortified breakfast cereals.
Unfortunately, some people don’t absorb B12 very well. Stabler says a vitamin B12 deficiency is common in five to 10 percent of people over age 60. One reason is older people don’t have enough stomach acid to release the vitamin from the protein in foods.
“A person cannot tell if they are getting enough B12 on a usual diet since it is a stomach failure to absorb that causes the problem,” she advises. If you think you might be having problems, talk with your doctor about having your B12 and homocysteine levels checked.
© FCA Publishing
Excerpted from FC&A's The Cure Conspiracy.
