Bones
Osteoporosis and bone health talk January 25th
20/Jan/12 05:03 PM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
I will be giving a free talk called Osteoporosis and bone health on Wednesday, January 25th, 7pm at the Main Street Library (137 Main Street, Toronto). Call the library at 416-393-7700 to RSVP!
Calcium is just the tip of the iceberg… Learn about risk factors and diagnosis as well as comprehensive treatment options to prevent and treat bone loss.
Topics will include:
See my Appearances and Events page for more upcoming dates and topics!
I will be giving a free talk called Osteoporosis and bone health on Wednesday, January 25th, 7pm at the Main Street Library (137 Main Street, Toronto). Call the library at 416-393-7700 to RSVP!
Calcium is just the tip of the iceberg… Learn about risk factors and diagnosis as well as comprehensive treatment options to prevent and treat bone loss.
Topics will include:
- Risk factors
- Prevention and treatment
- Key nutrition and lifestyle steps
See my Appearances and Events page for more upcoming dates and topics!
Comments
Osteoporosis and bone health talk January 18th
12/Jan/12 08:07 AM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
I will be giving a free talk called Osteoporosis and bone health on Wednesday, January 18th, 7pm at the Deer Park Library (40 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto). Call the library at 416-393-7657 to RSVP!
Calcium is just the tip of the iceberg… Learn about risk factors and diagnosis as well as comprehensive treatment options to prevent and treat bone loss.
Topics will include:
See my Appearances and Events page for more upcoming dates and topics!
I will be giving a free talk called Osteoporosis and bone health on Wednesday, January 18th, 7pm at the Deer Park Library (40 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto). Call the library at 416-393-7657 to RSVP!
Calcium is just the tip of the iceberg… Learn about risk factors and diagnosis as well as comprehensive treatment options to prevent and treat bone loss.
Topics will include:
- Risk factors
- Prevention and treatment
- Key nutrition and lifestyle steps
See my Appearances and Events page for more upcoming dates and topics!
Vitamin D - get tested!
29/Jul/11 12:40 PM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
I am very frequently asked about vitamin D, hence several previous blogs I’ve written on the subject!
Check out this great blog called “Vitamin D - Oh, How I Love Thee!” on Crazy Sexy Life with a concise list of conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency and info on how to get tested.
In Ontario, OHIP has stopped covering vitamin D testing because so many people have requested the test in recent years. However, getting your level tested is really the best way to assess your unique situation and determine a supplementation dose that is appropriate for your needs. If you want to get tested, you can pay for the test through your MD or see your ND who can also order the test for you.
I am very frequently asked about vitamin D, hence several previous blogs I’ve written on the subject!
Check out this great blog called “Vitamin D - Oh, How I Love Thee!” on Crazy Sexy Life with a concise list of conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency and info on how to get tested.
In Ontario, OHIP has stopped covering vitamin D testing because so many people have requested the test in recent years. However, getting your level tested is really the best way to assess your unique situation and determine a supplementation dose that is appropriate for your needs. If you want to get tested, you can pay for the test through your MD or see your ND who can also order the test for you.
More vitamin D commentary
26/Dec/10 02:01 PM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
More recent commentary on vitamin D as covered by Natural Medicine Journal:
Let the Science and Evidence Guide Clinical Decision-Making on Vitamin D for the Benefit of Patients, Alexander G. Schauss, PhD, FACN
This article discusses biochemical individuality, as well as evidence in favour of vitamin D as relates to frailty in elderly populations, genetic and racial variations, and immune support. Ultimately, he reiterates that we must “consider the individual,” which is what naturopathic medicine is all about!
Broad-Brush Recommendations Are a Disservice to the Public, Geovanni Espinosa, ND
This article summarizes conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency and provides some broad intake recommendations.
Media Coverage Further Confounds Recommendations, Susan W. Ryan, DO
This article highlights one major issue plaguing media coverage of health issues - inaccurate or incomplete reporting. Unfortunately, as a naturopathic doctor I find this to be all too common! What gets covered in major media is not necessarily representative of the information that exists on a topic, it is slanted more towards what is strange/interesting/controversial/trendy. This also includes such information available on the internet. There is a lot of great information to be found on the internet, but your best bet is to find out what is best for YOU from a trained health professional, such as your naturopathic doctor.
More recent commentary on vitamin D as covered by Natural Medicine Journal:
Let the Science and Evidence Guide Clinical Decision-Making on Vitamin D for the Benefit of Patients, Alexander G. Schauss, PhD, FACN
This article discusses biochemical individuality, as well as evidence in favour of vitamin D as relates to frailty in elderly populations, genetic and racial variations, and immune support. Ultimately, he reiterates that we must “consider the individual,” which is what naturopathic medicine is all about!
Broad-Brush Recommendations Are a Disservice to the Public, Geovanni Espinosa, ND
This article summarizes conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency and provides some broad intake recommendations.
Media Coverage Further Confounds Recommendations, Susan W. Ryan, DO
This article highlights one major issue plaguing media coverage of health issues - inaccurate or incomplete reporting. Unfortunately, as a naturopathic doctor I find this to be all too common! What gets covered in major media is not necessarily representative of the information that exists on a topic, it is slanted more towards what is strange/interesting/controversial/trendy. This also includes such information available on the internet. There is a lot of great information to be found on the internet, but your best bet is to find out what is best for YOU from a trained health professional, such as your naturopathic doctor.
Calcium and vitamin D
06/Dec/10 12:39 PM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
A recent article in the New York Times questioned the need for high levels of calcium and vitamin D supplementation that has become the new norm. I have already had patients ask me about this, so I will try to address it here.
I am always in favour of obtaining nutrients the way human beings were designed to get them, which is through food. Calcium and vitamin D are actually quite different types of nutrients, so I will discuss them separately. The main take-home point of this blog is that ultimately we are all unique and the beauty of naturopathic medicine is that as an ND I am able to work with you individually to assess your needs and make a recommendation that is personalized to you as an individual. So ultimately, to figure out how much calcium and vitamin D you should or should not take, talk to your naturopathic doctor!
Calcium
I am asked quite often how much calcium we need, what is the best source, etc... Osteoporosis is far too common in western society and yet we get lots of calcium here too! What’s going on? The short answer is that there is so much more to bone health than just calcium. There are three things to look at with regard to bone health.
First, the raw material needed to create bone. Calcium is just one of many building blocks necessary to make bone but it is definitely not the only one! Magnesium, phosphate, boron, and other minerals are all necessary.
Second, a pile of bricks does not make a house just as lots of materials (calcium and other minerals) do not automatically make bone. Bone has to be built and weight bearing exercise is a key factor to signal our bodies to take those materials and do something with them. When more stress is applied to bone, it becomes stronger. There are also other factors in building bone, such as proper blood flow (yes, bone is living tissue and needs blood!) and other signals like vitamin D (see below!) going on in the body.
Finally, we must prevent our bodies from breaking down bone to use those materials elsewhere. This is another complex area but in a nutshell, if your body needs some calcium to buffer your blood to keep it at the perfect pH level (which keeps you alive, by the way), it will draw this from bones. An acidic environment in our tissues increases the need to use bone to balance pH. And what causes an acidic environment? Stress, lack of sleep, caffeine/alcohol, sugar, dairy, and other acidifying foods...
While dairy groups and marketing boards have done an amazing job convincing people they need to eat a lot of servings of dairy products each day to get enough calcium, there are many other great sources of calcium that most people overlook. One great way is to make bone broth! You can also get calcium from leafy green veggies, nuts and seeds, and many other diverse food sources. For more info, check out the World’s Healthiest Foods site listing for calcium.
Vitamin D
In the case of vitamin D, our bodies use cholesterol (it’s not all bad!) to make vitamin D when our skin is exposed to the sun. For example, a caucasian person out in summer sun in just a bathing suit until his or her skin just begins to turn pink produces between 10,000 and 50,000IU of vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and can therefore be stored by our bodies so that we can make it through winter off the supply we’ve built up in the summer. Lighter skinned people make more vitamin D from the sun so it’s no surprise that at higher latitudes you find blonder, paler people and near the equator (where there is more direct sun exposure and no long, dark winter) you find darker skinned people. Anyway, before there were ever vitamin D supplements, humans spent much of their time, particularly in the summer, outside and likely made enough vitamin D to last through each winter.
However, this is not the world we live in anymore! Unfortunately most people spend nearly all their time indoors during the day and therefore cannot make vitamin D from sun exposure. This alone is a powerful argument for supplementation, not to mention the greater issue of how our incredibly unnatural lifestyle impacts our health, but that is a topic for another day. In addition, there have been many studies on vitamin D in the past few decades demonstrating how vitamin D impacts so much more than bone health. Vitamin D is in fact a hormone, a key signalling system in the body that can impact all kinds of conditions. There are far too many studies for me to summarize here, but if you want to learn more, you can start with reading the response to the article linked above written by the Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council.
So how do you know what to do? Again, the best way to determine if supplementation is right for you and how much to supplement is to see a naturopathic doctor who can assess your unique situation. You can also ask your doctor to run a blood test for 25-hydroxy vitamin D. The province of Ontario has recently put more restrictions on this test because it became so popular but if you have a condition for which vitamin D is important or that puts you at greater risk for deficiency, such as osteoporosis, parathyroid disease, pregnancy, or kidney disease, speak to your doctor about testing your levels.
A recent article in the New York Times questioned the need for high levels of calcium and vitamin D supplementation that has become the new norm. I have already had patients ask me about this, so I will try to address it here.
I am always in favour of obtaining nutrients the way human beings were designed to get them, which is through food. Calcium and vitamin D are actually quite different types of nutrients, so I will discuss them separately. The main take-home point of this blog is that ultimately we are all unique and the beauty of naturopathic medicine is that as an ND I am able to work with you individually to assess your needs and make a recommendation that is personalized to you as an individual. So ultimately, to figure out how much calcium and vitamin D you should or should not take, talk to your naturopathic doctor!
Calcium
I am asked quite often how much calcium we need, what is the best source, etc... Osteoporosis is far too common in western society and yet we get lots of calcium here too! What’s going on? The short answer is that there is so much more to bone health than just calcium. There are three things to look at with regard to bone health.
First, the raw material needed to create bone. Calcium is just one of many building blocks necessary to make bone but it is definitely not the only one! Magnesium, phosphate, boron, and other minerals are all necessary.
Second, a pile of bricks does not make a house just as lots of materials (calcium and other minerals) do not automatically make bone. Bone has to be built and weight bearing exercise is a key factor to signal our bodies to take those materials and do something with them. When more stress is applied to bone, it becomes stronger. There are also other factors in building bone, such as proper blood flow (yes, bone is living tissue and needs blood!) and other signals like vitamin D (see below!) going on in the body.
Finally, we must prevent our bodies from breaking down bone to use those materials elsewhere. This is another complex area but in a nutshell, if your body needs some calcium to buffer your blood to keep it at the perfect pH level (which keeps you alive, by the way), it will draw this from bones. An acidic environment in our tissues increases the need to use bone to balance pH. And what causes an acidic environment? Stress, lack of sleep, caffeine/alcohol, sugar, dairy, and other acidifying foods...
While dairy groups and marketing boards have done an amazing job convincing people they need to eat a lot of servings of dairy products each day to get enough calcium, there are many other great sources of calcium that most people overlook. One great way is to make bone broth! You can also get calcium from leafy green veggies, nuts and seeds, and many other diverse food sources. For more info, check out the World’s Healthiest Foods site listing for calcium.
Vitamin D
In the case of vitamin D, our bodies use cholesterol (it’s not all bad!) to make vitamin D when our skin is exposed to the sun. For example, a caucasian person out in summer sun in just a bathing suit until his or her skin just begins to turn pink produces between 10,000 and 50,000IU of vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and can therefore be stored by our bodies so that we can make it through winter off the supply we’ve built up in the summer. Lighter skinned people make more vitamin D from the sun so it’s no surprise that at higher latitudes you find blonder, paler people and near the equator (where there is more direct sun exposure and no long, dark winter) you find darker skinned people. Anyway, before there were ever vitamin D supplements, humans spent much of their time, particularly in the summer, outside and likely made enough vitamin D to last through each winter.
However, this is not the world we live in anymore! Unfortunately most people spend nearly all their time indoors during the day and therefore cannot make vitamin D from sun exposure. This alone is a powerful argument for supplementation, not to mention the greater issue of how our incredibly unnatural lifestyle impacts our health, but that is a topic for another day. In addition, there have been many studies on vitamin D in the past few decades demonstrating how vitamin D impacts so much more than bone health. Vitamin D is in fact a hormone, a key signalling system in the body that can impact all kinds of conditions. There are far too many studies for me to summarize here, but if you want to learn more, you can start with reading the response to the article linked above written by the Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council.
So how do you know what to do? Again, the best way to determine if supplementation is right for you and how much to supplement is to see a naturopathic doctor who can assess your unique situation. You can also ask your doctor to run a blood test for 25-hydroxy vitamin D. The province of Ontario has recently put more restrictions on this test because it became so popular but if you have a condition for which vitamin D is important or that puts you at greater risk for deficiency, such as osteoporosis, parathyroid disease, pregnancy, or kidney disease, speak to your doctor about testing your levels.
Bone broth
03/Dec/10 02:17 PM
by Kate Whimster, BCom, MIFHI, ND
In honour of recent discussion about calcium and vitamin D supplementation, I’m sharing my easy, simple recipe for bone broth. This is a great way to get calcium and other minerals from the bones, as well as other nutrients from the meat and cartilage. Plus it feels great to truly use every beneficial part of your food before throwing it away.
I like to buy a roasted chicken (the ones from Whole Foods are amazing!), cut off the meat (which I store in the freezer and pull out for a quick meal), and use the leftover bones. Basically you can just get some bones, throw whatever else you like in there too, and boil it all. There is really no way to mess this up, except if you boil it too long, in which case it turns kind of gelatinous... Don’t worry, I’ll tell you how long from my own experience!
You can use the broth to cook rice or other grains, as a base for soups, or in any variety of ways to add taste and nutrition to other dishes.
Bone Broth
(makes about 2-3L of broth)
Ingredients:
Bones! You can use chicken or beef, whichever you prefer.
1 Tbsp vinegar (I like apple cider because it is less vinegary tasting)
Spices of your choice to taste (salt and pepper are great)
Veggies of your choice (I use chopped garlic and onions, sometimes some carrots and celery too)
Immune boosting option! Add ingredients for Change of Season Soup (I’ve bought packages of this from Herbie’s Herbs) along with your veggies! Change of Season soup is an Asian medicine recipe using four herbs (Astragalus, Codonopsis, Dioscorea, and Lycii) which helps your body adjust to the transition between seasons to prevent getting sick.
Directions:
1. Place bones and vinegar in a large stockpot and cover with filtered water.
2. Cover and bring to a boil.
3. Turn down the heat to between low and medium and let simmer for about 1.5 to 2 hours.
4. Add spices and veggies.
7. Discard bones and other solids.
8. Place bowl in refrigerator overnight and in the morning skim off the top layer of fat.
9. Decant the liquid into airtight, leakproof, and ideally glass containers and store in the fridge or freezer.
Notes:
In honour of recent discussion about calcium and vitamin D supplementation, I’m sharing my easy, simple recipe for bone broth. This is a great way to get calcium and other minerals from the bones, as well as other nutrients from the meat and cartilage. Plus it feels great to truly use every beneficial part of your food before throwing it away.
I like to buy a roasted chicken (the ones from Whole Foods are amazing!), cut off the meat (which I store in the freezer and pull out for a quick meal), and use the leftover bones. Basically you can just get some bones, throw whatever else you like in there too, and boil it all. There is really no way to mess this up, except if you boil it too long, in which case it turns kind of gelatinous... Don’t worry, I’ll tell you how long from my own experience!
You can use the broth to cook rice or other grains, as a base for soups, or in any variety of ways to add taste and nutrition to other dishes.
Bone Broth
(makes about 2-3L of broth)
Ingredients:
Bones! You can use chicken or beef, whichever you prefer.
1 Tbsp vinegar (I like apple cider because it is less vinegary tasting)
Spices of your choice to taste (salt and pepper are great)
Veggies of your choice (I use chopped garlic and onions, sometimes some carrots and celery too)
Immune boosting option! Add ingredients for Change of Season Soup (I’ve bought packages of this from Herbie’s Herbs) along with your veggies! Change of Season soup is an Asian medicine recipe using four herbs (Astragalus, Codonopsis, Dioscorea, and Lycii) which helps your body adjust to the transition between seasons to prevent getting sick.
Directions:
1. Place bones and vinegar in a large stockpot and cover with filtered water.
2. Cover and bring to a boil.
3. Turn down the heat to between low and medium and let simmer for about 1.5 to 2 hours.
4. Add spices and veggies.
- 5. Turn heat up again to boil more vigourously, then turn it down to simmer again for another hour.
7. Discard bones and other solids.
8. Place bowl in refrigerator overnight and in the morning skim off the top layer of fat.
9. Decant the liquid into airtight, leakproof, and ideally glass containers and store in the fridge or freezer.
Notes:
- Simmering for more than 3-4 hours can result in a gelatinous broth!
- Use refrigerated broth within 7 days
- Use frozen broth within 6 months
