Osteoporosis
Healthy Lifestyle Tips
Smoking leads to increased bone loss.139 For this and many other health reasons, smoking should be avoided.
Exercise is known to help protect against bone loss.140 The more weight-bearing exercise done by men and postmenopausal women, the greater their bone mass and the lower their risk of osteoporosis. Walking is a perfect weight-bearing exercise. For premenopausal women, exercise is also important, but taken to extreme, it may lead to cessation of the menstrual cycle, which contributes to osteoporosis.141
Excess body mass helps protect against osteoporosis. As a result, researchers have been able to show that people who successfully lose weight have greater bone loss compared with those who do not lose weight.142 Therefore, people who lose weight need to be particularly vigilant about preventing osteoporotic fractures.