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Osteoporosis

Vitamins, Minerals, and Other Micronutrients

  • Chapter
Preventive Nutrition

Part of the book series: Nutrition ◊ and ◊ Health ((NH))

Abstract

Osteoporosis is a condition of skeletal fragility as a result of decreased bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, with consequent increased risk of fracture. The condition is multifactorial in pathogenesis. Nutrition affects bone health in two distinct ways. First, bone tissue deposition, maintenance, and repair are the result of cellular processes that are as dependent on nutrition as are the corresponding processes of any other tissue. The production of bone matrix, for example, requires the synthesis and posttranslational modification of collagen and an array of other proteins. Nutrients involved in these cellular activities include vitamins C, D, and K and the minerals phosphorus, copper, manganese, and zinc. Additionally, the regulation of calcium homeostasis requires normal magnesium nutrition. Second, the skeleton serves as a very large nutrient reserve for two minerals, calcium and phosphorus, and the size of that reserve (in other words, the strength of the skeletal structures) will be dependent in part on the daily balance between absorbed intake and excretory loss of these two minerals.

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Authors
  1. Robert P. Heaney
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. SmithKline Beecham Consumer Health Care, Parsippany, NJ, USA

    Adrianne Bendich PhD

  2. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Richard J. Deckelbaum MD

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Heaney, R.P. (1997). Osteoporosis. In: Bendich, A., Deckelbaum, R.J. (eds) Preventive Nutrition. Nutrition ◊ and ◊ Health. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6242-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6242-6_15

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-6244-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-6242-6

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