Ageing well

Love your bones for longevity

According to the National Osteoporosis group 536,000 fractures are attributed to osteoporosis each year in the UK (Kimpton et al., 2021). Currently, in the UK, approximately 549,000 new fragility fractures occur each year, including 105,000 hip fractures, 86,000 vertebral fractures, and 358,000 other fractures (Compston et al.,2022)

Calcium intake is recommended to be 1000mg/day and 800 IU/day of Vitamin D, at least 1g/kg body weight of protein. Bone growth and metabolism also require trace elements, such as iron, zinc, copper, phosphorous and magnesium. To avoid bone diseases, it is important to avoid to little or too high quantity (Ciosek et al., 2021).

Love your muscles

Sarcopenia is linked with poor quality of life and physical disability. A lack of resistant activity shows a 5-10% loss of muscle mass per decade after 50. This significantly increases risks of falls, bone fractures and poor mobility. However, the good news is that regular resistance exercise protects adults against these negative outcomes (Rodrigues et al.,2022).

Menopause

General nutrition guidelines do not consider the changes of this stage in the life span and therefore additional information for women to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and cancers is required (Yelland et al., 2023).

perimenopause is a unique stage of life which requires key nutrients for health (Christie & ND, 2023).

Declining levels of oestrogen and progesterone impacts the absorption of key nutrients such as magnesium, zinc, copper, and calcium in osteoporotic health. Studies have shown women to be less efficient at utilizing and absorbing nutrients especially Vitamin D and B12 (Bailey et al., 2022).

Women become more susceptible to inflammation at this stage of life and need to adapt their diets accordingly (Feskens et al., 2022).

A low GI pro inflammatory diet is evidenced to reduce muscle turning to fat alongside resistance training (Cacciatore et al., 2023).

Magnesium, omega 3 and vitamin B6 are key nutrients to support brain function reducing to mood disorders (Businaro, 2022).

Menopause responds well to a high protein diet and whole foods.

Sleep as a priority

Heavy resistance 2-4x 30mins HITT , ball sports or sprints 4 x 20m

Walk or your joyful activities- surf, swim, bike, ride etc 4 x weekly

Balance:

Qigong, yoga, Thai Chi, mat Pilates, gardening, walks etc

Stress relief:

Breathwork, meditation, journaling, self-hypnosis, massage.

Sounds like a lot to fit in, however it’s unlikely you’re going out partying often 🤪 so plenty of time for enjoyable self-care.

A link to a blog you may find interesting: https://coastaltherapiesdevon.co.uk/blog/perimenopause-menopause-nutrition.

References

References Ashton RE, Tew GA, Aning JJ, Gilbert SE, Lewis L, Saxton JM. Effects of short-term, medium-term and long-term resistance exercise training on cardiometabolic health outcomes in adults: systematic review with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2020 Mar;54(6):341-348. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2017-098970. Epub 2018 Jun 22. PMID: 29934430. Barry, V. W., Baruth, M., Beets, M. W., Durstine, J. L., Liu, J., & Blair, S. N. (2014). Fitness vs. Fatness on All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 56(4), 382-390. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcad.2013.09.002 Burgess, R., Mansell, G., Bishop, A., Lewis, M., & Hill, J. (2020). Predictors of functional outcome in musculoskeletal healthcare: An umbrella review. European Journal of Pain, 24(1), 51-70 Ciosek, Ż., Kot, K., Kosik-Bogacka, D., Łanocha-Arendarczyk, N., & Rotter, I. (2021). The effects of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, fluoride, and lead on bone tissue. Biomolecules, 11(4), 506. Compston, J., Cooper, A., Cooper, C., Gittoes, N., Gregson, C.L. and Harvey, N., 2022. UK clinical guideline for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Archives of Osteoporosis, 17(1), p.58. Dolezal, B. A., Neufeld, E. V., Boland, D. M., Martin, J. L., & Cooper, C. B. (2017). Interrelationship between sleep and exercise: a systematic review. Advances in preventive medicine, 2017 Hurst, C., Robinson, S. M., Witham, M. D., Dodds, R. M., Granic, A., Buckland, C., ... & Sayer, A. A. (2022). Resistance exercise as a treatment for sarcopenia: prescription and delivery. Age and ageing, 51(2), afac003. Lavin, K. M., Perkins, R. K., Jemiolo, B., Raue, U., Trappe, S. W., & Trappe, T. A. (2019). Effects of Aging and Lifelong Aerobic Exercise on Basal and Exercise-Induced Inflammation. Journal of Applied Physiology Martinez-Calderon, J., Flores-Cortes, M., Morales-Asencio, J. M., Fernandez-Sanchez, M., & Luque-Suarez, A. (2020). Which Interventions Enhance Pain Self-efficacy in People With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain? A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials, Including Over 12 000 Participants. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 50(8), 418- 430 Picavet, H. S. J., Monique Verschuren, W., Groot, L., Schaap, L., & van Oostrom, S. H. (2019). Pain over the adult life course: 15-year pain trajectories—The Doetinchem Cohort Study. European Journal of Pain, 23(9), 1723-1732 Rodrigues, F., Domingos, C., Monteiro, D., & Morouço, P. (2022). A review on aging, sarcopenia, falls, and resistance training in community-dwelling older adults. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(2), 874. Rogeri, P. S., Zanella Jr, R., Martins, G. L., Garcia, M. D., Leite, G., Lugaresi, R., ... & Lancha Jr, A. H. (2021). Strategies to prevent sarcopenia in the aging process: role of protein intake and exercise. Nutrients, 14(1), 52. Shailendra, P., Baldock, K. L., Li, L. K., Bennie, J. A., & Boyle, T. (2022). Resistance Training and Mortality Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. American journal of preventive medicine. Tschudi-Madsen, et al. (2011). A strong association between non-musculoskeletal symptoms and musculoskeletal pain symptoms: results from a population study. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 12(1), 285. Vina, E. R., Ran, D., Ashbeck, E. L., & Kwoh, C. K. (2020). Widespread pain is associated with increased risk of no clinical improvement after TKA in women. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®, 478(7), 1453 Wang, Y., Nie, J., Ferrari, G., Rey-Lopez, J. P., & Rezende, L. F. M. (2020). Association of Physical Activity Intensity With Mortality: A National Cohort Study of 403 681 US Adults. JAMA Internal Medicine. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.6331 Zhang, F., & Li, W. (2024). Vitamin D and sarcopenia in the senior people: a review of mechanisms and comprehensive prevention and treatment strategies. Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management, 577-595. Zhang, Y.-B., Pan, X.-F., Chen, J., Cao, A., Xia, L., Zhang, Y., . . . Pan, A. (2021). Combined lifestyle factors, all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. J Epidemiol Community Health, 75(1), 92-99.