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Nutritionally Speaking: Frequent Fractures Expose NBA Star to the Benefits of Nutrition (draft)
Typed manuscript prepared for Ojai Valley News, unspecified date.
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Dear Readers:
My articles the past two weeks have been bringing information to you about what you need, in addition to calcium, to keep your bones healthy and strong.
Should you have missed these last two osteoporosis articles, I would suggest contacting the O.V.N. office to see if copies are available. They contain information important for you to save and refer to regarding the minerals and vitamins needed to prevent the frequent occurrences of bone fractures and other problems of osteoporosis.
Today I would like to start with the interesting story about manganese.
The first serious investigation of the importance of manganese to the cause of osteoporosis came after the famous NBA basketball player, Bill Walton, suffered a series of fractures during games. He would no sooner recover from one broken bone when in a short period, he would sustain another fracture. The incapacitating layoffs devastated him and his team mates. Fortunately, he did not have to quit basketball, as a nutritionally-minded physician was consulted who did serum trace mineral studies and found his manganese levels were substantially below normal, and that his fractures were a result of osteoporosis.
The publicity of this experience led others to investigate manganese levels on a series of osteoporosis women that found them to be 75 percent below normal.
This isn’t surprising when you realize 85 percent of the manganese present in wheat is lost in making white bread and other white flour products and in the refining of cereals. Such products represent ⅓ to ½ of many individuals’ daily caloric intake.
Supplements of manganese, along with diet improvement, stopped Bill Walton’s fracture problem.
With all the calcium in foods out there and the supplements people take, one can’t help but wonder why those with osteoporosis fail to absorb it sufficiently. That brings up another rather common problem, that is, a lack of sufficient amounts of stomach digestive enzymes (hypochlorhydria).
This is an old story to my regular O.V.N. readers as I have often written about the common failure of even good diets to be utilized because so many are short of digestive enzymes. This deficiency is the root of many illnesses and has a particularly strong connection to those that develop osteoporosis.
In addition to the above mentioned minerals, vitamins and enzymes, there are a half dozen others that also are almost equally involved in the health of bones. For example, vitamin D is required for the intestinal absorption of calcium. Lack of time in the sun and the consumption of foods containing vitamin D is more common than you might imagine.
Another mineral, magnesium, activates alkaline phosphates, an enzyme involved in the formation of new bone crystals. It is likewise helpful in the utilization of vitamin D. The typical American diet finds 80 percent of women are deficient in magnesium.
Because chicks fed diets low in silicon develop thin leg bones and skull abnormalities, and because high amounts of silicon are present in growing bone, this element needs consideration. In addition, fractured bones of people and animals are found to heal much faster when supplements of silicon are taken.
Zinc is also a mineral essential to the normal formation of bone. It enhances vitamin D utilization and is found to be low in bones of the lower jaw and in the other bones of individuals who have osteoporosis.
Likewise, a deficiency of vitamin C can be involved in the development of osteoporosis. Some 20 percent of elderly women are found to be deficient in vitamin C.
Lastly, thought must be given both to the possible need of strontium as it is present in fairly large amounts in bones and teeth, and to copper for its role as a cofactor for the enzyme lysyl oxidase involved with connective tissue and collagen.
That more than calcium is involved in the health of your bones is now, I trust, quite apparent. However, the very number of nutrients involved in osteoporosis can prove troublesome in adopting a treatment plan. Success is not that difficult to achieve if, first of all, one understands the detrimental roles of sugar, caffeine, soft drinks and alcohol, and adopts suitable, natural good foods to take their place.
Secondly, a supplement has been formulated by two of the country’s leading nutritional physicians, Dr. Jonathan Wright and Dr. Alan Gaby, that contains all of the ingredients that I have mentioned in these articles. It is called Osteo-Prime, a product of Bio-Therapeutics, P.O. Box 1348, Green Bay, Wisconsin 54305.
I have checked and find that it is available at our local health food store, Rainbow Bridge, and other stores and pharmacies can get it for you. It is not my desire to push particular companies’ supplements but this is the only one that I know of that contains all the nutrients mentioned in these articles.
Inasmuch as this supplement is quite new, my experience with it has been limited. I have confidence in Drs. Wright and Gaby but if you try it and have any questions, please contact me.