For those of you reading who actually have osteoporosis you know the hardships of living with this disease. Osteoporosis is a condition that causes bone to weaken and become brittle. This disease does not attack overnight, but over many years, so when a diagnosis is made the disease has taken its toll on your body and now you must fight it each and every day. According to the National Institutes of Health, one out of every two women and one of every four men age 50 and older, will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture during their lifetimes. There are effective ways to combat osteoporosis, starting with your diet and the foods you consume.

Eating a healthy diet, rich in calcium is where you want to start. Some people are too lazy to eat healthy so they think they can just pop a calcium supplement and go on their way. Recent studies now show that calcium intake through chews is not as effective as once thought. Simply by chewing a few little candies will not give you sufficient calcium intake. Eat right and organic and you will be able to fight osteoporosis much more effectively.

Another vitamin you want to focus on is vitamin D. To maintain normal calcium metabolism, a person’s vitamin D status appears to be more important than supplementing with calcium, reports a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (2005;294:2336–41).

My second way to combat osteoporosis is partaking in weight lifting and exercise. Doing so will strengthen your bones and muscles to increase your overall quality of life. Before starting weight lifting with osteoporosis you should definitely talk to your doctor about the type of program you should do.

The last part to combating osteoporosis, and I put this last for a reason, is drug therapy. When you turn on the TV and see an advertisement for osteoporosis drugs you realize half the commercial is filled with warnings about the long lift potential side effects. Yes drugs like alendronate, ibandronate, ibandronate, risedronate and zoledronic acid, can inhibit bone breakdown and increase bone density, but is the risk really worth it? Are blood clots and stroke something you are willing to risk. Taking pharmaceutical drugs for osteoporosis is a complete judgment call on a personal basis.

None of these tips are ground breaking, or by any means revolutionary, but these area few good was to start the fight against osteoporosis and know that there is a decision to be personally made about medication.