Beyond Bone Defense – The most complete and effective way to support your bones

Most of us never give our bones a second thought unless of course we actually manage to break one. But as we get older our bones can become increasingly weak and prone to fracturing. This can develop into a really significant health issue and ultimately can have tragic consequences. In a study published in the fourth February 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers reported that those aged 75 years and older face an increased risk of death from even a minor fracture. This is a sobering conclusion and should be one that makes all of us think more carefully about our bone health. And it is not something that we should leave until we reach our 60’s and 70’s. As many as half of all women and a quarter of men older than 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis - a condition that leads to weakened bones that are more prone to breaking (we look at osteoporosis in more detail later).

Fortunately, help is at a hand in the form of Beyond Bone Defense which nurtures and supports our bones. And whilst there may be other products on the market that seek to help with bone health, Beyond Bone Defense is the only bone health product that contains every fully documented, cutting edge nutrient, known to be effective.

Bone Function

The adult human skeleton is made up of 206 bones (although the number can vary slightly between individuals). If you were asked to say what role the bones in your body perform, you would probably answer something along the lines that your skeleton acts as a framework around which the rest of your body is constructed. However, this by no means the complete answer. Whilst providing a framework to give your body both support and shape, is, of course, a vitally important role, the bones in our bodies perform other equally important functions. Less obvious functions include:

• Blood cell production - haematopoiesis is the name given to the formation of blood cellular components. This takes place in the haematopoietic stem cells which are found inside the red bone marrow of large bones. Bone marrow is the flexible tissue found in the hollow interior of bones
• Storage - bones act as storage reserves for minerals (particularly calcium and phosphorus). Yellow bone marrow acts as a storage reserve for fatty acids. Bones can also store heavy metals and other foreign elements, removing them from the blood stream for later excretion. This particular storage action helps to protect other tissues in the body
• Endocrine regulation - bone cells release a hormone called osteocalcin which helps to regulate blood sugars and fat deposits

And even though our bones appear to be solid, inert objects, they are in fact living tissue, continually being renewed through processes of formation and resorption (known as bone remodelling). Osteoclasts are responsible for the breaking down of bone (resorption), with osteoblasts being the cells from which bones are formed.

What happens to our bones with age?

As we grow older so the condition of our bones gradually deteriorates. Bone mass or density is lost, especially in post-menopausal women. Bones also lose calcium and other minerals making bones thinner and more brittle. Unfortunately, brittle bones break more easily.

Other changes occur as well. For example, the fluid between the vertebrae in the spine is lost with age and as the vertebrae themselves become thinner, the spine becomes more compressed and curved. As a result we become shorter and may become progressively more stooped. Joints become less flexible and may begin to lose structure (particularly in the hips and the knees) or they begin to calcify (deposits of minerals - particularly common in the shoulder joint) making movement much more painful and we become increasingly stiff and inflexible. Our risk of injury also increases because of changes in gait and posture that can cause instability and loss of balance.

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is one of the most well known bone problems, especially for older women, affecting an estimated 75million people in Europe, the USA and Japan with the majority of them being women. But men should not be complacent. Although being female certainly increases your chances of developing osteoporosis, it is by no means a female-only disease. For example, in the United States it’s estimated that more than 2 million men suffer from full-blown osteoporosis, with millions more at risk. Each year, 80,000 men have a hip fracture and one-third of these men die within a year.

Not only does osteoporosis exact a huge cost in terms of pain and suffering, it is also extremely costly in financial terms. It’s estimated that in the United States alone the national direct expenditure for osteoporosis and related fractures amounts to $14 billion a year!

The word osteoporosis literally means “porous bones”. In normal bones, bone formation and bone resorption are closely-coupled processes. But when someone is suffering from osteoporosis, the net rate of bone resorption exceeds the rate of bone formation. As a result, bones lose an excessive amount of their protein and mineral content, particularly calcium. Over time, bone mass and therefore bone strength decreases. Eventually, the amount of bone available for mechanical support of the skeleton falls below what is referred to as the ‘fracture threshold’, and bones become so fragile that they may fracture with little or no trauma. Even a sneeze or a sudden movement may be enough to break a bone in someone with severe osteoporosis. And breaking bones as we get older does not just bring with it issues of pain and reduced mobility, the risk of dying from even a very minor fracture significantly increases with age.

The reason that older women tend to suffer more from osteoporosis than men may be due to the decline in oestrogen levels following the menopause. Osteoclast activity (bone resorption) increases when oestrogen levels are low.

Having osteopenia (low bone mass) is a high risk factor in the progression to full-blown osteoporosis and although age is also a key risk factor, osteoporosis can strike at any time. Unfortunately, osteoporosis is a silent disease. It shows no visible symptoms. You might not know you have it until you break a bone.

How can Beyond Bone Defense help?

Most people believe that if they have enough calcium they will protect their bones. But calcium alone won’t do it. Beyond Bone Defense offers the most complete bone health supplement available. It contains effective nutrients recognised as being effective in improving bone density, including folate, vitamin B12, manganese, zinc, boron, strontium and silicon. Beyond Bone Defense also contains a unique OsteoBalance herbal complex which includes green tea extracts, curcumin and lipoic acids.

However, two of the main features of Beyond Bone Defense are the inclusion of both forms of Vitamin K and also a super high strength Vitamin D. Research has shown that together Vitamins K and D work synergistically on bone density. They are the classic combination when it comes to bone health.

Vitamin K

Most people probably think about Vitamin K in relation to blood not bones. Its primary function in the body is to aid blood clotting - indeed, blood would not clot without it and for this reason it is often called the ‘clotting vitamin’. Babies are routinely given Vitamin K at birth because they have low levels of this crucial vitamin and may be susceptible to a rare but potentially catastrophic condition called Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding.

However, research over the past few years has clearly demonstrated that Vitamin K has another significant role to play in human health beyond its well-established blood clotting function. Clinical studies have shown that Vitamin K can improve bone health by not only increasing bone mineral density in osteoporotic people but also by actually reducing fracture rates. Vitamin K is now known to play a vital role in both bone metabolism and the absorption of calcium - the key mineral in bone metabolism.

There are two main forms of Vitamin K: Vitamin K1, also known as phylloquinone or phytonadione which is found in green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli and spinach, and makes up about 90 per cent of the vitamin K in a typical Western diet; and Vitamin K2, also known as menaquinones, which make up about 10 per cent of Western Vitamin K consumption and can be synthesised in the gut by microflora. Whilst both Vitamin K1 and K2 provide bone support, Vitamin K2 has the additional beneficial feature of acting in effect as “biological glue” that helps to plug the calcium into the bone matrix, thereby positively affecting calcium balance.

By building strong bones and providing bone support, Vitamin K can help to prevent or treat osteoporosis and the loss of bone density. Indeed, Vitamin K is now understood to be one of the most important nutritional interventions for improving bone density.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is essential for bone health. It promotes calcium absorption in the intestines and maintains adequate concentrations of calcium and phosphate in blood serum. These concentrations are vital if normal bone mineralization is to take place. Vitamin D is also required for bone growth and by osteoclasts and osteoblasts during the processes of bone remodelling. If you become deficient in Vitamin D, your body will not absorb all the calcium that it needs and your bones can become brittle, thin or misshapen through impaired bone mineralization. This will leave you vulnerable to developing bone softening diseases such as osteomalacia (known as rickets in children). Many of the effects of osteomalacia are similar to osteoporosis as bones become thin and fragile. Adequate levels of Vitamin D can also help to protect you from osteoporosis.

Most people meet their Vitamin D needs through exposure to the sun. Our bodies produce Vitamin D when the sun’s UV radiation hits our skin and reacts with a cholesterol-like substance found in skin. Although there is some Vitamin D found in a number of food and drink products, the levels are very low and it’s nowhere near enough to meet our daily requirements. People who have very low exposure to the sun can therefore become deficient in Vitamin D. This includes people who cover their skin for cultural or religious reasons and people who spend most of their time indoors even if you sit by a glass window (UV radiation does not penetrate glass). Of course, too much sun exposure heightens the risk of developing skin cancer so a sensible balance between sun exposure and protection has to be found. Although sunscreens may block UV rays in theory, in reality most people do not apply sufficient amounts or cover all exposed skin so some Vitamin D synthesis is likely, even when sunscreen is being used.

It is also worth remembering that people with dark skin may need more sun exposure time than people with fair skin to produce an adequate amount of vitamin D. Obese people may need as much as twice the usual daily requirement of Vitamin D because extra weight has been found to impair Vitamin D absorption.

If you develop a chronic Vitamin D deficiency, it is not something that can be reversed quickly so it makes much more sense not to allow your Vitamin D levels to drop in the first place.

But Vitamin D is not just essential for bone health. Vitamin D helps to modulate neuromuscular and immune function and can also reduce inflammation. It’s not surprising then that Vitamin D deficiency is implicated in a number of other conditions including schizophrenis, psoriasis, depression, muscular aches pains and weakness, impaired insulin production, exacerbation of type II diabetes and cancer. So taking Beyond Bone Defense is not just good for your bones but is good for your all round health.

Dosage

Take one capsule per day, or as directed by your healthcare professional. Not recommended for children under the age of 18.