Building Strong Bones for Lifelong Health

Osteoporosis is often a condition reserved for older people, specifically women. But did you know that it affects young people as well as men? Protecting bone health can start at a young age if we continue to discuss the importance of it as Kevin Ellis and I do in this episode of Biohacking Superhuman Performance. 

In this conversation with guest Kevin Ellis, the Bone Coach, we explore the world of bone health and bone disease. Osteoporosis is affecting more and more people at younger ages due to the sedentary lives with low-nutrient diets that society leads. 

We dive into the standard recommendations that follow an osteoporosis diagnosis, as well as the medications, side effects, and long-term results of these procedures. Most medications require even more follow-up medications, so knowing what you’re getting into is important when selecting the route you want to take. Natural bone restoration is an option for those who don’t want to blindly follow the medication route. 

Overall, this conversation offers guidance on exercise, nutrition, and gut health procedures for building and maintaining quality bone tissue for longevity. 

Kevin Ellis is an Integrative Nutrition Certified Health Coach, osteoporosis "thriver," and founder of BoneCoach™. He has made it his mission to help over a million people around the globe address bone loss, build bone strength, stop fearing fractures, and lead active lives. He's most famous for helping people with osteopenia and osteoporosis gain clarity and confidence that improvement is possible.

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Find more from Kevin Ellis

Website: https://bonecoach.com/ 

Podcast: The Bone Coach Podcast 

Instagram: @bonecoachkevin

Stronger Bones Masterclass: https://bonecoach.com/stronger-bones-masterclass 

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What We Discuss: 

(0:50) The start of Bone Coach

(2:20) Osteoporosis isn’t just in old people or women

(3:20) How PPIs play into long-term issues

(5:33) The difference between osteoporosis and osteopenia. 

(9:20) Dairy isn’t the only solution for bone health. 

(12:20) The issues with the standard treatment recommendation for an osteoporosis diagnosis. 

(15:00) Quality bone is just as important as bone density

(18:50) Important nutrients for your skeleton

(20:15) What you have to know before taking medication 

(26:25) A natural approach to healing bone loss

(46:44) The Bone Coach Program 

(48:17) Stress, sleep, and bone health

(50:00) You need K2! Not just magnesium, calcium, and D3. 

(52:30) Find more from Bone Coach

Key Takeaways:

• Decade-long use of PPIs is highly damaging. It reduces stomach acid, but you need stomach acid to break down food in order to absorb important nutrients like amino acids, B12, and more. If PPIs are taken at all, it should be for just a short while. 

• Osteoporosis means porous bones. It’s not enough bone formation or excessive bone loss. Bone quality and density are reduced. Osteopenia is a precursor to osteoporosis - it just means low bone mass. Most people aren’t getting scanned until later in life, or towards menopause. Peak bone mass happens near 30 years old. Getting a bone density scan around that time frame can help you monitor changes over time. 

• A sedentary lifestyle, smoking, and a low-nutrient diet can cause bone loss. You can naturally build bone without medication. The most important foundations for bone health are diet, gut health, and exercise. Without a healthy gut, we cannot absorb the nutrients that we need to build bones. People with gut diseases like Celiac or Chrons need to have bone scans often. Protein is highly important along with calcium. For exercise, walking is not enough to build bones. You need muscle pulling on bone and impact. A mix of weight bearing exercises (walking, yoga, gardening, pickleball, hiking) non-weight bearing exercises (long-distance cycling and swimming) and muscle strengthening exercises (barbell, dumbbell, machine work, squats, deadlifts, squats in the 5-10 rep range) are all needed to build quality bone as well as dense and flexible bone.