A Skeleton Is For Life
A skeleton is forever, not just Halloween?
Skeletons have an image problem.
I mean, spooky October? We couldn’t move for skeletons.
But really, since then?
Have we given even a moment to think about this unsung hero?
It’s true that I’m not the first person to suggest our skeleton needs a new publicist.
That honor probably goes to Dr. Brock Hammersley, who in 2017 as the US orthopedic surgeon general, called for February 17th to be a day of celebration for our boney scaffold.
But as I’ve yet to see Hallmark “happy skeleton day” greetings card, I don’t believe the world has taken these wonderful 206 bones to its heart!
And that’s a real shame.
No skeleton would mean a silent life, stuck in place because whether singing, speaking or sprinting, if those muscles don’t have bones to attach to? Nothing moves.
No skeleton would mean a life lived in bubble wrap because our brain and spinal cord have a consistency surprisingly close to that of Greek yogurt! Without the protection of the 22 bones in our face and skull and our 24 individual vertebrae, this Chobani-like nervous system wouldn’t even survive our birth!
And no skeleton would mean no blood either.
A whopping 85% of our cells are red blood cells, vital for delivering oxygen to every part of us. These cells, along with germ-killing white blood cells and platelets that stop us from bleeding to death, are made by red bone marrow inside our skeleton.
How then, do we make and maintain this amazing, multi-functional inner framework?
First things first, if our skeleton is going to survive the demands of life for around eighty years (slightly more if we’re British and slightly less if we’re American), it has to be tough and springy.
The toughness and density of our bones comes mainly from the minerals, calcium and phosphorus but bones constructed just from these elements would be a disaster – they’d be far too brittle to survive our birth intact, let alone successfully navigate through all the mayhem of childhood.
Of course, bones do break but most of us will leave high school without ever having broken a bone because of collagen, a stretchy protein found throughout our skeleton.
As well as those bone toughening minerals, inside all our bones are springy webs made up of collagen threads, giving our bones the elasticity and springiness that will allow us to hop, skip and jump without splintering into a thousand pieces!
(We’re fresh-faced and unlined in our youth, because our skin also has those same stretchy collagen molecules. The decreased collagen production that happens as we age, well that explains our wrinkles!)
When it comes to creating and growing a skeleton from embryo to gangly teenager, diet is key - first mom’s then the new human’s!
Dietary vitamin C and protein are vital to make the collagen scaffold and then of course, we need those calcium and phosphorus molecules to harden and thicken up the bones. And we have to throw in vitamin D too because without it calcium can’t journey from our intestines via blood into our bones, instead leaving our body in our poop.
In addition to our diet, making a healthy skeleton requires our body to produce hormones including thyroid and growth hormones and the sex hormones, estrogen and testosterone.
(It’s worth mentioning here that both sexes produce both of these hormones, males just produce more testosterone and females produce more estrogen)
Last, but definitely not least, certain types of exercise play a powerful skeleton-boosting role.
Anytime our feet and leg bones are supporting our weight, for instance when we’re walking, running or jump-roping, that’s called weight-bearing exercise. Placing bones under this type of healthy stress, encourages them to soak up more calcium – it’s literally the skeleton deciding that bones that are going to be worked need to get stronger to do that work.
Instead when our muscles are curling, squatting and pulling extra weight, then we’re resistance training, another really skeleton-friendly activity. Forcing muscles to move additional weight, stresses the bones the muscles are attached to, and those bones in response, increase their density, wow!
Typically, after only two decades of eating the right things, hopping, skipping and producing the necessary hormones, we’ve arrived at our maximum height. We spend the next ten thickening up these bones a little more so that our lifetime, peak bone density usually occurs around the time we’re just thirty!
Healthy bones will be impressively strong at this age - when it comes to withstanding a direct impact, healthy bone has about 60% the strength of steel and even more amazingly, double that of the strongest concrete.
At this point, our boney frame should’ve earned the right to relax and wait out its remaining years but that won’t happen because our daily activities cause constant wear and tear on our skeleton.
But of course, there’s a plan for this!
It’s called remodeling - a rolling program of skeletal demolition and repair where worn-out bone is replaced with fresh new stuff. We remodel about 10% of our skeleton each year so almost none of the skeleton we had back in 2010 is hanging out with us today!
Let’s check in here – we have a skeleton that lasts a lifetime, repairs itself and improves itself as we use it.
That would be like being gifted a cell phone at birth which won’t ever need replacing, repairs itself if we drop it in water or crack the screen and, best of all, the more we use it, the better the battery life!
I want that phone!
We do have to consider one issue though - because of this on-going remodeling, from development through maintenance to death, we have to keep eating right, exercising and producing those hormones if we’re going to keep a strong and healthy skeleton.
Remember estrogen and testosterone from earlier, helping us get to our full height? By helping to move calcium from our blood and into our bone, they’re incredibly important for helping us make and keep a dense skeleton but unfortunately, not only is thirty the age for peak bone density, it’s also when we’re best at making our sex hormones.
After this age?
It’s downhill all the way ☹.
Whilst males can expect a gradual decline in testosterone over the rest of their lifetime, female estrogen levels have a slow drop-off for ten to fifteen years before estrogen production dives off a cliff around the menopause.
All this means that as we age, our skeletal remodeling is taking place against a back drop of falling estrogen and testosterone production. We carry on breaking down our worn out bone but moving calcium into our bones to make the new stuff becomes more difficult with less sex hormones to help.
The net effect is that after about thirty, almost all of us will take more calcium out of our skeleton every day, than we are able to put back in.
Regardless of how many vitamin D supplements we take or pounds of cheese we eat.
See where we’re going here?
Our chances of having a strong and healthy skeleton when we’re say, seventy, are hugely influenced by the size of our skeletal calcium fund, some forty years earlier!
Sort of like a pension, or a 401K.
Because the bigger our skeletal calcium or retirement fund when we start drawing down on them, the more likely they are to last.
And, whether it’s our calcium fund or our retirement fund, by the time we find out it’s too small and not going to last, it’s probably too late!
As always, I’m not here to give medical advice, just to help you have those conversations! I really do want to encourage you to talk with your health care professional about this topic. Depending on your age, there may still be time for you to increase your calcium fund (or help your children increase theirs, especially your daughters) or at least reduce that draw down rate so that your fund lasts as long as you do!
I always love hearing your thoughts so please consider adding one to the comments section below or send me an email. You know the drill :)
