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According to a new study in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, researchers have found that when they gave flaxseed oil to female rats who had either had their ovaries removed or were diabetic, they reported a lower risk of developing osteoporosis.

However, the rats that had both post-menopausal symptoms and were diabetic were still considered at high risk for developing the disease.

It was also found that diabetes tends to have a stronger effect on the bones than menopausal symptoms, which is why those with the disease still may be at risk whether they take flaxseed oil or not.

Because of this, the researchers are looking for more studies to be done to understand why flaxseed oil cannot diminish the risk factors for diabetes.

“We recommend further investigations using animals and humans to confirm the effect of using dietary flaxseed oil to improve bone health and to prevent osteoporosis,” the researchers wrote.

New research is suggesting that there is a link between depression and a loss of bone mass, which could lead to bone breakage and osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is more common among women than men, and is a condition that causes bones to weaken and possibly fracture, which is why some nutritionists recommend taking nutritional supplements such as vitamin D and calcium to keep bones strong.

According to a study found in the journal Biological Psychiatry, it was found that after testing thousands of individuals, there was substantially less bone density in depressed individuals than the mentally healthy.

The results showed that after testing 2,327 depressed and 21,141 non-depressed patients, depressed individuals were at a higher risk of osteoporosis.

“All individuals psychiatrically diagnosed with major depression are at risk for developing osteoporosis, with depressed young women showing the highest risk,” wrote the researchers.

Because of these findings, the researchers feel that it’s a good idea for depressed patients to get checkups to try and prevent the development of osteoporosis.

A new study suggests that people who suffer from depression are also at risk for low bone mineral density.

The study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry pooled data from both depressed and non-depressed individuals compiled over the past 14 years.

It finds that those who suffer from depression had less dense bones and increased levels of bone resorption markers than those who did not suffer from the condition.

“We propose that all individuals psychiatrically diagnosed with major depression are at risk for developing osteoporosis, with depressed women—particularly those who are premenopausa—showing a higher risk than men,” the study’s authors Drs. Raz Yirmiya and Itai Bab say.

Previous studies have found higher cortisol levels, often found in depressed patients, can contribute to bone loss because the hormone destroys bone-building cells.

Exercise is a natural health resource proven to aid in both warding off depression and bone loss.

In addition, studies have found that green tea, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D and boron can all aid in maintaining bone density. For those worried their diet may be lacking in these, nutritional health supplements are a viable option.

Meanwhile, omega-3 fatty acids, folic acid and herbal supplements containing St. John’s Wort and Sam-e have been linked to reducing depression.

Additionally, many high protein diets are high in saturated fat and low in fiber, a combination that can increase cholesterol levels and raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

High protein diets have also been shown to cause higher than normal calcium excretion through the urine, which over a prolonged period of time can increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney stones. And a recent study suggests that a high protein diet may actually cause brain shrinkage and an increased “susceptibility to or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The discovery was an unexpected one, found while studying the effects of different diets on mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The mice were fed either a regular diet, high fat/low carb custom diet, high protein/low carb version or a high carb/low fat option. When the researchers looked at the brain and body weight of the mice, as well as plaque build-up and differences in the structure of several brain regions involved in the memory defect underlying AD, they were surprised to find that the brains of the mice fed a high protein/low carb diet were 5 percent lighter than all the others and the regions of their hippocampus were less developed.

The researchers theorize that the high protein diet may leave neurons more vulnerable to AD plaque. “High protein diets are used for weight control, and those diets sometimes combine high fat and high protein, which may be doubly damaging, if the high fat increases the accumulation of plaques and the high protein sensitizes nerve cells to the poison released by plaques,” said lead author Sam Gandy, a professor at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a neurologist at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York. “Given the previously reported association of high-protein diet with aging-related neurotoxicity, one wonders whether particular diets, if ingested at particular ages, might increase susceptibility to incidence or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Gandy believes the only way to know for sure if these findings have implications for the human brain is to perform prospective randomized double blind clinical diet trials. “This would be a challenging undertaking but potentially worthwhile. If there is a real chance that the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease might be slowed or avoided through healthy eating,” he said. “Such trials will be required if scientists are ever to make specific recommendations about dietary risks for Alzheimer’s disease.” Previous research has shown a Mediterranean-style low-calorie, low-fat diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and fish might delay the onset or slow the progression of AD.

AD is the most common type of dementia, affecting as many as 5.3 million Americans. Brain lesions, called amyloid plaques and tangles, accumulate, destroying brain cells, causing memory loss and problems with thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, social life and even the ability to cope with everyday life. Over time, AD gets worse and is fatal. Currently, there is no cure for AD, but researchers around the world continue to search for better ways to treat the disease, delay its onset, or prevent it from developing.

The study done by researchers in Hong Kong and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry finds that EGC, a main compound in green tea, boosted the activity of a key enzyme that promotes bone growth by up to 79 percent.

EGC also significantly boosted levels of bone mineralization in the cells, which strengthens bones.
Researcher Ping Chung Leung notes that previous studies have already linked green tea to improved bone health, but says that few have been able to pinpoint the exact chemicals that are responsible for it.

The study suggests that increased consumption of green tea can prevent and treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases that affect millions worldwide.

In the U.S. today, 10 million individuals are estimated to already have osteoporosis and almost 34 million more are believed to be at an increased risk for the disease.

Muscle-strengthening exercise, as well as proper intake of calcium and vitamin D through food or nutritional health supplements have all been shown to lower the risk of developing osteoporosis.

While exercise can boost mood, its health benefits have been oversold.

Moderate exercise can reduce the risk of diabetes in people at risk. Exercise may reduce the risk of heart disease and breast and colon cancers.

Though the evidence is mixed, exercise may also provide benefits for people with osteoporosis.

Physical activity alone will not lead to sustained weight loss or reduce blood pressure or cholesterol.

Exercise has long been touted as the panacea for everything that ails you. For better health, simply walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day, boosters say — and you don’t even have to do it all at once. Count a few minutes here and a few there, and just add them up. Or wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. However you manage it, you will lose weight, get your blood pressure under control and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

If only it were so simple. While exercise has undeniable benefits, many, if not most, of its powers have been oversold. Sure, it can be fun. It can make you feel energized. And it may lift your mood. But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found.

Moderate exercise, such as walking, can reduce the risk of diabetes in obese and sedentary people whose blood sugar is starting to rise. That outcome was shown in a large federal study in which participants were randomly assigned either to an exercise and diet program, to take a diabetes drug or to serve as controls. Despite trying hard, those who dieted and worked out lost very little weight. But they did manage to maintain a regular walking program, and fewer of them went on to develop diabetes.

Exercise also may reduce the risk of heart disease, though the evidence is surprisingly mixed. There seems to be a threshold effect: Most of the heart protection appears to be realized by people who go from being sedentary to being moderately active, usually by walking regularly. More intense exercise has been shown to provide only slightly greater benefits. Yet the data from several large studies have not always been clear, because those who exercise tend to be very different from those who do not.

Active people are much less likely to smoke; they’re thinner and they eat differently than their sedentary peers. They also tend to be more educated, and education is one of the strongest predictors of good health in general and a longer life. As a result, it is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising.

Scientists have much the same problem evaluating exercise and cancer. The same sort of studies that were done for heart disease find that people who exercised had lower rates of colon and breast cancer. But whether that result is cause or effect is not well established.

Exercise is often said to stave off osteoporosis. Yet even weight-bearing activities like walking, running or lifting weights has not been shown to have that effect. Still, in rigorous studies in which elderly people were randomly assigned either to exercise or maintain their normal routine, the exercisers were less likely to fall, perhaps because they got stronger or developed better balance. Since falls can lead to fractures in people with osteoporosis, exercise may prevent broken bones — but only indirectly.

And what about weight loss? Lifting weights builds muscles but will not make you burn more calories. The muscle you gain is minuscule compared with the total amount of skeletal muscle in the body. And muscle has a very low metabolic rate when it’s at rest. (You can’t flex your biceps all the time.)

Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A & M University, calculated that the average amount of muscle that men gained after a serious 12-week weight-lifting program was 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds. That added muscle would increase the metabolic rate by only 24 calories a day.

Exercise alone, in the absence of weight loss, has not been shown to reduce blood pressure. Nor does it make much difference in cholesterol levels. Weight loss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but if you want to lose weight, you have to diet as well as exercise. Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss.Just ask Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He runs every day and even runs marathons. But, he adds, “I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I’m still short, fat and bald. Weight control is difficult for me. I fight the losing battle.”

The difficulty, Dr. Blair says, is that it’s much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise. As he relates, “An old football coach used to say, ‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.’”