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Okay, let’s have a break and check our diet. Are you getting enough calcium? Four years ago, I broke my ankle and fractured my tibia perhaps due to my being overweight at that time. While recovering, my doctor advised me to drink Anlene which I took for just 6 months until I could really walk without crutches. The fracture made me think that perhaps I have brittle bones or worse, osteoporosis.

When I attended the Anlene event, I had no idea there was a bone-scanning activity. To my pleasant surprise, my bone scanning results showed I was “low risk”. Perhaps it was because I take calcium supplements with my other vitamins and take regular exercises since then.

Did you know that 50% of Filipino women are at risk of osteoporosis? I never really gave it much attention until the Anlene event. Osteoporosis is a bone condition caused by low bone density, which leads to an increased risk of bone fracture due to weak and brittle bones. Although a person’s bone density – the amount of bones present in a person’s skeletal structure – is hereditary, osteoporosis itself is primarily caused by lifestyle factors, particularly lack of exercise and a deficiency in calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. We all know that calcium is the building blocks of the bones, and fortunately our diets are fairly rich in calcium. Milk, milk products, and vegetables like malunggay are excellent sources of calcium. However, it’s not enough to eat calcium-rich foods; the human body needs magnesium, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B6 in order for the bones to absorb calcium properly. Magnesium is particularly critical to calcium absorption; the body needs to receive the proper ratio of calcium and magnesium (1mg magnesium per 2mg calcium) for the bones to use the latter.

Osteoporosis does not occur overnight; in fact, it does not even happen within a year. Osteoporosis is a condition that accumulates over years and years of neglecting bone health. Aside from putting a person at high risk for bone fractures, osteoporosis also causes problems in the spine and vertebrae. You know how a number of elderly women tend to walk with a stoop? This condition is called dowager’s back, and it is a vertebral fracture that occurs during advanced osteoporosis. My grandmother had a dowager’s back and maybe it was due to the fact that she had low calcium depleted after bearing 14 children. Although old age is a long way off for many of us, we need to start taking care of our bodies as early as now. After all, prevention is the best cure, and getting used to certain healthy lifestyle habits is far better than dealing with the health problems of osteoporosis during our twilight years.

Fortunately, preventing osteoporosis is easy. All we need to do is exercise regularly, cut down on processed foods, eat healthier foods with lots of green vegetables, and make drinking milk like Anlene a daily habit. According to the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference on Osteoporosis, women younger than 50 need 750 mg of calcium a day, whereas pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women need 800mg daily. A regular glass of milk only has 250mg calcium, but a milk product like Anlene has 500mg of calcium in a glass, as well as vitamin D, magnesium, and zinc. Two glasses of this milk daily provides 1,000mg of calcium, meeting 100% of the Philippine RDA for calcium. Adults 51 years and older will benefit from Anlene Gold, which has 600mg of calcium, 3x more vitamin D than regular Anlene, magnesium, and zinc.

So if you’re happy with the current state of your health, do something to make sure you stay this healthy and happy for the rest of your life. Get into the Anlene habit today. I know I sound like a commercial but I swear by it and am going back to the Anlene habit.

I am drinking low-fat chocolate flavored anlene right now.

Tags: anlene, charlene gonzales, Osteoporosis