How’s your bone health? Are you increasing or losing bone density?
Most LivingtheCRWay members follow a strategy to prevent bone loss. So, we thought you would appreciate seeing this letter to our endocrinologist, Dr. Jeffrey Powell, after Paul had his recent bone-health tests. Dr. Powell is a specialist in male osteoporosis.
Dear Dr. Powell:
Thank you for sending our test results. We appreciate the detailed interpretations you included. It is another sign of the thoughtfulness and integrity that make you such a great doctor.
Since we had our appointment with you in January, I’ve been named Healthy Aging Strategist for the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. As we discussed, one of my first tasks will be to conduct four workshops on the subject of healthy aging. One workshop will include osteoporosis prevention and interventions, which, as you know, are extremely important to calorie restrictors.
Towards that end, I want to make sure that Meredith and I are following the right strategy for our own bone protection. So I decided to do my normal exercise routine and vitamin D production with the sun lamp before having my blood drawn for the tests you ordered for me. As the tests revealed, and you properly noted, a lot of bone remodeling is going on. Most likely, this is due to exercise, so I am still not sure how to interpret the results:
- CTX -Collagen Crosslinking (a measure of bone resorption) – when I first looked at my test results, I was concerned that this marker was so much higher than others of my age group. After finding the Quest test interpretation online, I noticed that my results were more in line with 20- to 29-year-olds. It is also elevated by exercise.
- NTX (measures bone resorption) – if bone resorption is an issue, I would have thought this number would be higher.
- Osteocalcin (measures bone formation) – Because we have tripled the amount of exercise we do since we last tested osteocalcin, I expected this to be high. I have increased the length of my walks with a 25-pound weight vest from 20 minutes to approximately 45 minutes — as well as the frequency from 2 or 3 days/week to 5.
I lift weights more frequently too – 10-15 minutes five days/week, rather than four.
Every morning I follow this by 32 minutes (non-aerobic) on the rower, VersaClimber or UBE (upper body exerciser).
Before lunch, I do 25 minutes of abdominal crunches and yoga.
In the evenings, I walk for 30 – 45 minutes and/or do another 32 minutes on the rower, VersaClimber or UBE for an exercise total of 2 – 2 ½ hours of exercise a day.
My body is the strongest and most flexible ever in my adult life. Because osteoporosis runs in my family, and since I have seen many successful calorie restrictors in their 90s and 100s die soon after breaking their hips, I felt aggressive intervention was necessary.
While the results are great now, I am guessing that over the long term this is too much exercise for maintenance of adult stem cell pools into very advanced age. I am gambling that we will soon be able to replace adult stem cells and thus alleviate this problem. If this interests you, please see the recent CR Way blog post, “Will you run out of stem cells?”
- Vitamin D – in previous conversations, you have warned against getting vitamin D above 60 ng/dL. I take your warning quite seriously and have noticed that it is well supported by research.
My latest D level, therefore, was higher than I wish. I aim to keep it consistently in the 40s. So I’m not pleased about seeing it surge to 52. Because this might be due to my having had health-lamp exposure a few hours before the blood test, I may reduce the health-lamp exposure and would appreciate the opportunity to test it again in a few months.
- Parathyroid hormone/calcium – I’m not sure what to make of this since parathyroid hormone is slightly elevated among calorie restrictors and it is increased by exercise. We recently increased our calcium intake to approximately 760-800 g/day with low-phosphorus foods that facilitate calcium absorption. Since our last appointment we have learned more about tipping the balance towards bone formation, by eating calcium-rich foods close to exercise. Become a LivingTheCRWay member (Free or Contributing) and find out more by reading “Increasing bone formation during exercise” in the Bone Health forum.
I will feel a lot more comfortable when we can establish regular intima media examinations, before increasing calcium further. We are still looking for the right cardiologist to do this for us.
We will appreciate any comments from you.
We are delighted that you have agreed to be an official doctor of the CR Way DNA HACR study. Study participants who visit you will be most enriched.
Thank you for your great work.
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