How much and what kind of exercise builds bone?

Dairy, for many of us, is not the way to go. There are plenty of sources of calcium. Building and maintaining bone is more complex than eating to get calcium and vitamin D. It can be the difference between success and failure -understand the complexity is simply more than taking supplements.

I agree with the others on the AI that it’s less than perfect. You have to wait through too much information and it’s missing some context. To answer the question simply put “resistance exercises” (in the old days we used to call these isometric exercises). . Also good old fashion, walking as it pounds the nutrients into your bones.
Be really careful on the supplements! If you eat a good diet, a relatively un processed foods your body gets what it needs when it’s younger, but when it’s older, it doesn’t absorb the nutrition as well and good supplements for your gender may be wise. However, our bodies can be unique when it comes to deficiency. It is helpful if you can do some intercellular lab testing that identifies which nutrients your body might not be processing well. It is super important to know that too much vitamin D or calcium can be a real problem. We have long touted that women need extra calcium, but it’s not necessarily true and too much calcium deposits on heart arteries and is bad for some people who have heart artery disease. In addition, the AI totally misses the importance of hormones. One body needs hormones to get those nutrients and after exercise two muscles and bones. It is probably why women are incredibly prone to osteoporosis after menopause. The nutrition does little if the hormones aren’t present to get them where they need to go. DEXA scans can be informative however they only provide general information and can’t be entirely relied upon as I found out having DEXA’s every year for 25 years. If you can find a place that does a DEXA scan and uses TBS software (trebicular bone scoring.) sorry for the misspelling.- you will have a MUCH more accurate bone score from year to year.. knowing that bones are not created equally in your body is important. I was diagnosed as normal from osteopenic and that turned out to be only true on my wrists. My cervical spine C5 fell apart in the doctor’s hand during surgery. The screws moved because the adjacent bone was not strong enough to hold the hardware and I had to have another cervical spine surgery right away. Because I will have more surgery as I age because of my degenerative condition it is mandatory that I maintain my body so that I qualify for any future surgeries. I am 68 and the quality of my bones will be determined when I’m 78 if I am eligible for surgery. Therefore, I have decided on the bone medicines TYMLOS and RECLAST, and bioidentical transdermalHRT. Along with exercise, nutrition and appropriate supplements. my follow up testing has been extremely rewarding and I am now trending in the right direction in order to have good bone health. This all takes a lot of time to research and is pretty overwhelming to start, but once you get going it fades into the background. I can absolutely say that this online forum has been critical for information and support. Good luck to everyone.

You found a doctor who would prescribe Tymlos, Reclast, and BHRT at the same time? How much have your DEXA numbers improved? Thanks!

That is a yes, and a no question to answer! I am at UC health, San Diego medical system for the most part. So it could be considered the same doctors but within the system, I see an endocrinologist who has a team for the bone medicines and I am in the gynecology department For the BHRT. This falls under the umbrella of my primary care Doctor Who gets these requests from myself. I am the head of the snake, lol! My CTX and P1NP were trending in the optimal direction as it should after completing my first two years.Last year I switched to a DEXA machine which uses TBS software, so it is not possible to compare with the previous years’ DEXA tests. This summer will be my first DEXA scan comparing accurately an “apples to apples test“with last year‘s test. I will report back when I get it!
I am lucky to live in the state of California, where there are many universities and medical research establishments. I think that makes it much easier to find doctors who are like-minded and see the value of research, clinical tests, and the results of good medicine.
I am also very lucky that the need to have these medicines covered under my health insurance is understood. I use transdermal BHRT because women’s cancer ran in my family. When I used to use the BHRT and it was compounded it was not covered. (Which is really stupid and makes zero sense). I, we, are finally getting over that hump too! I do not have to pay for my Prometrium, I had only a co-pay for my estradiol, and I’m not sure what to expect with the testosterone at my next pick up, but I’m sure it will be paid or I will have a co-pay. The next time I will pick up these medicines I expect I will not be paying for them as we will put in a prior authorization to the insurance company.
There are some new laws on the table here in California for the insurance companies to not interfere with prescriptions which are medically necessitated. I think it’s all moving in the right direction if we can get federal bureaucracies to stop challenging women’s healthcare needs.

I will look forward to hearing about your apples-to-apples DEXA results next time around. Thank you!