It needs calcium, vitamin D and weight-bearing exercise to stay strong. If you don't take care of your bones, they may be slowly changing in ways that could lead to osteoporosis, a serious disease that affects eight million American women. In fact, a woman's risk of developing osteoporosis is equal to her combined risk of developing breast, uterine and ovarian cancers.
Osteoporosis develops when calcium is depleted from the bones faster than it can be replenished.
This occurs because your body needs calcium to sustain many functions - heart beat, muscle contraction and blood clotting. If you do not consume enough calcium, your body will take calcium from its most ready source - your bones. Over time, this calcium loss causes the bones to lose their strength and resiliency, until they become so weak and brittle that even the slightest stress can cause them to fracture. This process starts in women between the ages of 30 and 35 and progresses throughout life. Once a woman reaches menopause, her bone mass decreases about two percent a year.