“Dead water”: 6 popular drinks that destroy bones

Many peo­ple know what to eat to strength­en bones. Usu­al­ly, foods rich in cal­ci­um, phos­pho­rus, mag­ne­sium, zinc, Omega‑3 fat­ty acids, vit­a­mins A, C, D and K are rec­om­mend­ed. But at the same time, peo­ple for­get that along with healthy food there is harm­ful food. And some com­mon foods and drinks con­tribute to bone loss.

What drink­ing habits under­mine all efforts to strength­en bones? Research results are shared by Med­AboutMe.

Habit 1: Drink pickle

Pick­led cucum­bers and toma­toes, zuc­chi­ni and assort­ed veg­eta­bles are pop­u­lar snacks in Rus­sia. They are often served on the table on week­days and offered to guests on a hol­i­day. And the brine that remains after them is great for first cours­es. But some peo­ple like to drink it in its pure form.

“But the more salt you eat, the more bone mass you lose,” warns MD, an endocri­nol­o­gist. Feli­cia Kos­man. “Salt is known to cause exces­sive excre­tion of cal­ci­um through the kid­neys. To keep bones healthy, it is impor­tant to lim­it your salt intake.”

A study pub­lished in Asia Pacif­ic Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Nutri­tion in 2016 found that Chi­nese men who ate salty foods were more like­ly to devel­op osteo­poro­sis, a dis­ease that results from reduced bone den­si­ty. And the 2017 study cit­ed by the jour­nal Osteo­poro­sis Inter­na­tion­alfound the same asso­ci­a­tion between salty food intake and the devel­op­ment of osteo­poro­sis in post­menopausal women.

Habit 2: Drinking sugary soda

Sug­ary soda, even diet options, is not a healthy food item. It does not give any­thing good to the body, but it can cause seri­ous harm.

“Sev­en or more serv­ings of cola per week is asso­ci­at­ed with a decrease in bone min­er­al den­si­ty and an increased risk of frac­tures,” Dr. Feli­cia Kos­man. “The mech­a­nism of influ­ence is not ful­ly under­stood by sci­en­tists, but one thing is clear: not a sin­gle soda is good for health.”

Some sci­en­tists believe that the effect is due to the con­tent of phos­phate or cit­ric acid in car­bon­at­ed drinks. They acid­i­fy the prod­uct so that it has a more pleas­ant and mul­ti­fac­eted taste.

At the same time, Amer­i­can researchers have cal­cu­lat­ed that car­bon­at­ed drinks such as Cola are the favorite drink of women aged 20–40 years. And British researchers claim that one in eight teenagers in the UK drinks more than 22 cans of Cola per week!

Mean­while, in a study pub­lished in Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Nutri­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2014, it is said that the more often con­sumers drink soda, the high­er the risk of frac­tures and osteo­poro­sis.

Habit 3: Drink a lot of coffee

Those who want to main­tain healthy bones well into old age should also be care­ful with caf­feinat­ed drinks. Cof­fee has become so ingrained in our lives that we sim­ply for­get about its side effects.

One 2016 study pub­lished in the jour­nal BMC Mus­cu­loskele­tal Dis­or­ders, Sci­en­tists have found that caf­feine intake is asso­ci­at­ed with low bone den­si­ty in post­menopausal women.

“Caf­feine leach­es cal­ci­um from the bones, rob­bing them of strength,” explains MD, nutri­tion­ist. Dina Had­er. “For every 100mg of caf­feine you get from food and drink, the body los­es about 6mg of cal­ci­um.”

At the same time, the neg­a­tive effect of caf­feine is more pro­nounced in com­bi­na­tion with sweet foods. Such con­clu­sions were pre­sent­ed by a study pub­lished in Euro­pean Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Nutri­tion. There­fore, experts rec­om­mend lim­it­ing cof­fee con­sump­tion, drink­ing it with­out sug­ar if pos­si­ble, and with dessert. You should also be care­ful with choco­late, a drink that com­bines sug­ar and caf­feine.

Habit 4: Taking Sports Drinks to Workout

Today you can buy them not only in an elite fit­ness cen­ter and sports nutri­tion store, but also in a reg­u­lar super­mar­ket. At the same time, dif­fer­ent drinks have dif­fer­ent effects on the body. And con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, they do not have “super­pow­ers”, since they are not clas­si­fied as med­i­cines, but as nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ments. There­fore, they are not con­trolled as strict­ly.

Sports drink ads present them as a healthy alter­na­tive to sug­ary soda. But not all sports drinks are of decent qual­i­ty and can be con­sid­ered healthy. Many sports drinks and juices have an increased con­cen­tra­tion of sodi­um. This is explained by the fact that dur­ing intense exer­cise the body los­es water, and with it — elec­trolytes. But sodi­um, as men­tioned above, con­tributes to the leach­ing of cal­ci­um from the bones.

Oth­er sports drinks are loaded with caf­feine to pro­vide the ath­lete with an ener­gy boost. And it also has its draw­backs. There­fore, it is also impos­si­ble to part with sports drinks.

Habit 5: Avoid Dairy

Dairy prod­ucts are the most afford­able source of cal­ci­um and vit­a­min D, com­po­nents that are very impor­tant for main­tain­ing bone den­si­ty.

One cup of milk con­tains about a third of your dai­ly cal­ci­um intake. And three glass­es of milk can replen­ish the body’s dai­ly intake of both cal­ci­um and vit­a­min D.

To get more ben­e­fits, you can drink pro­bi­ot­ic foods in addi­tion to milk — yogurt and kefir. But giv­ing up dairy prod­ucts com­plete­ly is not worth it. The excep­tion is peo­ple with lac­tose intol­er­ance.

A study pub­lished in Archives of Pub­lic Healthshowed that old­er peo­ple who eat dairy every day have a low­er risk of frac­tures.

Habit 6: Drinking alcoholic beverages

If you need anoth­er rea­son to give up alco­hol — then it is, and a very good one!

“Alco­hol abuse con­tributes to a decrease in bone mass, an increase in the risk of frac­tures and slow their heal­ing,” says Dr. Dina Had­er. But what is very impor­tant, such “side effects” are typ­i­cal for peo­ple of all ages, and not just old­er ones.

Research pub­lished in Octo­ber 2015 in the jour­nal bmj open, found that healthy women aged 19 to 30 who con­sumed large amounts of alco­hol had sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er bone den­si­ty than those who did not.

Researchers say that the risk of osteo­poro­sis increas­es the con­sump­tion of 8 drinks per week for women and 15 drinks for men. At the same time, one serv­ing of an alco­holic drink is 150 ml of wine and about 350 ml of beer.

Cul­ti­vate the right habits in your­self, observe the drink­ing reg­i­men and be healthy!