Know how you can develop healthy bones

The body is designed to adapt all body organs with bones included to the specific needs. One of the most important health conditions to maintain the health of bones is active physical fitness. If a person is physically active, the body will work to make the bones as strong and flexible as possible with its resources. For people who lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle, the body will not work to produce and maintain strong and flexible bones since the lifestyle is not signaling a need for such bones. Being physically active does not mean that you have to run miles per day or attend aerobics classes at the local gym three times a week. For example when one is regularly doing chores around his or her living and work areas, walking or biking instead of taking your car, and finding other ways to go about your daily routine while being physically active is necessary. There is no need to make time for exercise since you are already exercising for most of the day. If you spend most of your day sitting for long stretches at a time, for the sake of building and maintaining healthy bones, you should incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine. A regular stretching program can help ensure that the muscles, tendons, and ligaments stay at healthy. A sedentary lifestyle and lack of stretching can cause gradual shortening of muscles, tendons and ligaments. Since these tissues insert into the bones, when they shorten they can actually put significant stress on their insertion points. This is a primary mechanism of bone spur (osteophytes) development. Foam rolling the biggest muscle groups, is an excellent adjunct to stretching and can almost certainly help to keep the bones and soft tissues healthy. A regular stretching program can help ensure that your muscles, tendons, and ligaments stay at healthy lengths. The body needs much more than calcium supplements to build and maintain healthy bones. When a person considers that his or her bones are comprised of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, manganese, zinc, iron, silica, and many other trace minerals, it should be clear that eating mineral-rich foods is far superior to taking calcium-based supplements. Green vegetables and herbs are the healthiest mineral rich foods that a person can eat. In order to actually get the minerals in green vegetables and herbs into the bloodstream so as to become available to the bones and other organs, one must be mindful of chewing these plants thoroughly. Thorough chewing helps to ensure that the protective cell walls that surround all plant cells are sufficiently broken to allow the bones and other tissues to have access to the many minerals contained with in those cells. Drinking freshly pressed vegetable juices and well blended green smoothies, are other ways of ensuring that one actually get the minerals in green vegetables and herbs into the bloodstream. Use of high quality green food powders can also help provide your bloodstream and bones with a rich supply of minerals. Adequate amounts of vitamin D must be present in your body for calcium in your foods to be optimally absorbed and used. When the weather is warm and sunlight is readily present, the best way to ensure adequate vitamin D status, is to expose the skin to sunlight on a regular basis without getting burned. Sunlight acts on cholesterol found in the skin to produce vitamin D. The body destroys any excess vitamin D that is made in this fashion when it has made enough for the body needs. People need to keep in mind that use of sunscreen can prevent sun light from acting on cholesterol in the skin to produce vitamin D. When the weather is cool and sunlight is not readily available, the best way to ensure adequate vitamin D status is to eat one or more foods that are naturally rich in vitamin D on a regular basis. Different varieties of fish are good food sources of natural vitamin D. High quality liver oil is another good food source of natural vitamin D. Ends