Here’s an example of a conversation with a medical doctor about osteoporosis, who has never read any research….
Patient…..”Doctor can bone loss be reversed? Are there any natural treatments for osteoporosis?”
“Doctor“……”Sorry there’s nothing we can do. The best option we can do (to have a slight chance at slowing the progression of bone loss) is to take Ibandronate (Boniva) or Alendronate (Fosamax)“.
Patient: ……walks out of the room dejected thinking there is no hope.
This makes me so angry.
It makes me angry that people trust doctors so much and it also makes me angry that doctors act so confident without having read any research. It’s maddening to me.
I put doctor in quote because the word “doctor” comes from the Latin verb “docere,” meaning “to teach”.
These days doctors are glorified pharmaceutical salesmen disguised as doctors. They don’t teach, they offer drugs.
My opinion is medical doctors should go to jail for this. The problem is that this is the standard of care. If doctors actually read research and told you about all the natural cures for bone loss, they’d get their license taken away and they’d lose their entire practice.
So….turns out you have to do your own research. Which is where I come in and why you’re reading this article now about reversing bone loss naturally.
In a weird way God brought together to have this conversation right now. There’s a reason you’ve stumbled on this article. 🙂
My mom had the beginning signs of osteopenia around 2003 and 2004. I was able to help her stop the progression and keep it there for 20 years. If she was more disciplined and followed all the advice I lay out in The Bone Health Protocol, she could have completely reversed her bone loss.
I’ll put a video up about how her cancer story got me into natural health below.
Bone Structure
Every tissue (including bone) can regenerate itself if you remove the things that are causing the degeneration while providing the building blocks for new tissue growth.
Let’s take a look at the structure of bone…
Organic Matrix (Osteoid): This is the organic part of the bone, primarily composed of collagen, which makes up 90% of the osteoid. It provides flexibility and strength to the bone.
Mineral Salts: These include calcium and phosphorus, which impregnate the osteoid to provide hardness and rigidity to the bone. The mineral component constitutes two-thirds of the bone’s dry weight.
Osteoclasts and Osteoblasts
Osteoclasts are cells responsible for the resorption of old bone.
Osteoblasts are cells that lay down new bone. This continuous process of resorption and formation makes sure the maintenance of bone density and structure continues.
Equilibrium: Under normal healthy conditions, the activities of osteoclasts and osteoblasts are in perfect balance, maintaining constant bone density and structure. This means the same amount of bone that gets broken down via osteoclasts is the exact same amount of new bone growth from osteoblasts.
Now let’s dive into….
What Causes Bone Loss?
In order for bones to remain strong, sturdy and stable your bones need to be breaking down, as fast as they’re growing. To compare it to money, if you spend $5 per day and earn $5 per day you’re even. Once you start spending $6 per day while still earning $5, it’s only a matter of days until you’re broke.
In the case of bone loss, your osteoclasts are dissolving bone faster than you’re building with osteoblasts.
Osteoblasts will differentiate into osteocytes which are mature bone cells. Osteoclasts are cells that will reabsorb dead or damaged bone cells.
What causes these two sets of cells to behave and what damages bone cells to the extent that they die or become damaged?
Here are some causes….
Acidosis – Poor breathing/co2
Your blood pH is critical for your survival. Your blood serum should remain between 7.38 and 7.42. If it goes below 7.35 you have acidosis. If your blood drops to 6.8. that could mean death. When this occurs, your body uses calcium to bring the pH of the blood out of acidity into an alkaline state. Where does this calcium come from?
Your bones.
Your next question should be, what makes my blood too acidic?
I never thought you’d ask. Excess breathing, stress and acidic foods can alter the pH of the blood.
One powerful way to regulate the pH of the blood is to make sure that you’re retaining carbon dioxide levels in the body. A simple and cheap way to do this is to use mouth tape while you sleep. We did an entire radio show about the power of breathing with Patrick McGeown which I’ll post below. He’s the author of the book Oxygen Advantage. It ties in nicely with what we’re talking about here.
I highly recommend you give it a listen.
Antinutrients
What are antinutrients? These are compounds found in many foods that prevent absorbing the actual minerals in the food you’re eating. These would be lectins, oxalates, phytates, tannins, saponins and goitrogens. Foods high in these substances would be nuts, seeds, nightshade vegetables, cruciferous veggies, some grains, tea, coffee, spinach and even some fruits.
Just be careful with these types of foods. These antinutrients can really disrupt your entire digestive system and can damage the gut lining and the cells in those tight junctions (which doing rectal ozone insufflations heals by the way).
When you’re eating these foods, you’re actually removing nutrients your bones need, from your body. Think of it like the opposite of taking a high quality supplement.
Since this is step is all about avoiding the foods that prevent minerals from getting to your bones, it’s easy to avoid them. Avoiding anti nutrients should be at the heart of any bone density repair program.
Medications
If you’re on medications I would highly suggest looking into the “side effects” of them to see how they alter blood pH, impact minerals or affect bone health directly. We do know that some medications can have a negative effect on bone health like…
Poor Diet
Obviously a poor diet would include medications and foods high in antinutrients but there are other foods to consider avoiding as well. If you have bone loss, I would highly encourage you to avoid soft drinks. It doesn’t appear to be the carbonation (which is very good for you) but the excess sugar which alters blood pH which then robs bones of calcium.
Lack of Sunlight
Vitamin D in the form of sunlight (or a device as a second option) is absolutely critical for bone health. I do not recommend taking a vitamin D supplement rather getting it from sunlight and if you have to, a Vitamin D lamp.
Low Stomach Acid
Remember our soils have been depleted of minerals since the 1930’s and if you eat the Standard American Diet you’re going to end up with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. I recommend a mostly animal and meat based diet with minimal veggies and limiting sugar.
If you’re over the age of 60 most likely you’re low in vitamin B12 BECAUSE you’re also low in hydrochloric acid. Dr. Mary VanSant from the Mayo Clinic in 1934 studied 3,400 patients and found that 52% of women and 48% of men over the age of 60 were not producing enough stomach acid to digest, assimilate and absorb the nutrients in their food.
Now consider this…
Back then there were way less fake food items and processed garbage we eat today and yet, they still didn’t produce enough HCL to digest food. As a result my projection would be that people today over the age of 30 do not product enough stomach acid.
Some people when they take HCL will have an upset stomach, this just means your stomach lining is compromised and you need to rebuild it. Once you do, you can increase the amount of HCL you take with your meals.
Lack of Exercise
Exercise is critical when it comes to the health of your bones. Can bone loss be reversed with exercise? I would say yes from the research I’ve read and when you combine it with diet and supplementation you can go a long way to reversing bone loss naturally, unlike what your doctor told you.
Muscles are attached to bones from tendons. When muscles are expanded and contracted, they pull on the tendons which again are attached to the bones. This stimulates the bones (and muscles themselves) to create new tissue and growth.
If you never put any strain or stress on your muscles, your bones become weak. This is in accordance with Wolff’s Law which claims that bone is laid down where it is needed and resorbed where it is not needed.
If you want to build stronger bones, walking (although better than sitting) is not going to do it for you. You need to strengthen your major muscle groups (chest, butt, quadriceps and back) with compound exercises.
Ladies, there’s no way around it, you must lift heavy weights if you want to maintain bone health. You’re not going to look like a man if you lift weights.
How To Build Bone Density
There’s a law of biological transmutation which essentially states that just because a mineral is present doesn’t mean that the consumption of that mineral is what’s needed for the body. A perfect example is calcium. The body in its infinite wisdom makes calcium from magnesium and silica.
Just because calcium is present in bones, doesn’t mean that we need to eat it necessarily. A bit of a tangent but the same is true for “essential” fatty acids being in the brain. Just because they are present in a human brain doesn’t meant the should be. That’s the subject of another article entirely.
Can bone loss be reversed? Yes and here’s how below…
Diet
Many people recommend extreme diets that cut out entire food groups. These would include Paleo, Ketogenic, Carnivore, Vegetarian, Vegan (and Raw Veganism) and Mediterranean.
I’m a fan of limiting your processed foods but eating a wide array of foods. I put a primary emphasis on animal foods that are high in protein, vitamin D, calcium and vitamin K. These would include animal meats, poultry (including eggs), some dairy, green leafy vegetables (green juices work great for this) and some fruits or raw honey.
Sometimes to make significant differences, you can simply avoid certain foods or types of food. To rebuild bone tissue, the main thing I want to stress is to avoid processed foods and in particular processed carbohydrates that include polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) which include soy oil, canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil and any oil that’s liquid at room temperature.
Supplements
- HCL ( to be able to digest the healthy foods and supplements you’re going to start taking)
- Vitamin K (4 capsules per day) – Study – Study
- Boron – 30 to 75mg per day – Lecture – Study – Study
- Organo Silica – 1 tablespoon per day – StudyÂ
- Vitamin C – (I’d start with 3,000 mg per day) – Study
- Shilajit – (800 mg per day) – Study
- Gelatin – 3 to 4 tablespoons per day – More Info
- Sulfur – 1 teaspoon 2x per day – Study
- Strontium AM and PM – per day – More info – Study
Treatments
Can bone loss be reversed with just diet and supplementation alone? Probably but there are things you can do to speed up the process and doing specific treatments can definitely help. I would add chiropractic adjustments to my weekly schedule along with carbon dioxide therapy and something called Exogen.
If you can afford it, another powerful therapy you could try is red light therapy for osteoporosis. I found over 56 studies in my initial search that seems to confirm how photobiomoduluation can help increase bone health and potentially reverse bone loss.
The red light therapy device I use personally and recommend can be found here.
635-nm LED Therapy Inhibits Bone Resorptive Osteoclast Formation
The 2014 study titled A 635-nm LED Therapy Inhibits Bone Resorptive Osteoclast Formation, conducted as an experimental study at Seoul National University, found that 635-nm LED light therapy significantly reduced osteoclast activity, effectively lowering bone resorption. The conclusion suggests that red light therapy could help prevent bone degradation, making it potentially useful for osteoporosis treatment. Source: Study Link.
Effect of Red Light on Proliferation and Osteogenic Differentiation of Bone Marrow MSCs
The 2012 study Effect of Red Light on Proliferation and Osteogenic Differentiation of Bone Marrow MSCs, completed as an in vitro study by Nanjing Medical University, showed that red light enhanced both the proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into bone-forming cells. Researchers concluded that red light therapy can aid bone healing by promoting stem cell activity. Source: Study Link.
Red Light Increases Proliferation and Osteogenic Differentiation of Rat Bone MSCs
In the 2010 laboratory study Red Light Increases Proliferation and Osteogenic Differentiation of Rat Bone MSCs at National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan, red LED light was observed to stimulate bone cell growth and differentiation in rat stem cells. The conclusion noted that red light therapy supports bone formation and repair, showing potential to enhance bone density. Source: Study Link.
Exercise
In order to reverse bone loss with exercise I recommend compound movements (squats, bench press, deadlifts, pullups and pushups). You really need to get on a weekly schedule of weightlifting and it needs to be the core part of your physical fitness routine.
On top of the weekly weightlifting I would do daily rebounding (studies show rebounding helps with bone health) and vibration plate therapy. This is a good paper on exactly this subject. I recommend doing each of these for 10 minutes every day.
The Bottom Line
Can bone loss be reversed? The answer is yes…but it takes time. You have to heal tissue, heal your stomach lining and stop participating in what’s causing your bone loss. I go into much greater detail in my Bone Health Protocol and walk you through the exact step-by-step plan of what I would do if I were diagnosed with either osteopenia or osteoporosis.
My aim is to encourage you to know there are changes you can make to your diet and supplement routine that can make dramatic differences over time. When you add dietary changes and supplement upgrades along with specific exercises and treatments, you can go a long way to reversing bone loss naturally.
In my protocol I also cover a new therapy that you can do that has tremendous results with healing osteoporosis without drugs or mediations.
Questions:
- Do you have weak or brittle bones?
- What did your doctor recommend as a treatment?
- Have you tried natural remedies…did they work to reverse your bone loss?
Comment below!
