Bone Health Boost: How to Strengthen Bones After a Celiac Diagnosis Ep. 184

Discover the essential connection between celiac disease and bone health in the latest episode, where I discuss the hidden risks and offer practical solutions to enhance your well-being.
Did you know that nutrient malabsorption can lead to osteoporosis and osteopenia?
In today's episode you'll learn how to safeguard your bone strength with a diet rich in nutrients and the most important macronutrient for bone strength. You'll also learn some crucial areas in your diet that could be causing further bone depletion.


Previous Episodes Mentioned

Episode 172 Strength Training: Empowering Women with Celiac Disease through Perimenopause and Beyond 

https://thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/episodes/15568621-strength-training-empowering-women-with-celiac-disease-through-perimenopause-and-beyond-ep-172

 

Episode 143 How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 2

 https://thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/episodes/14352684-how-macronutrients-support-a-celiac-s-gluten-free-diet-part-2-ep-143

Blogpost Mentioned

https://www.belindawhelan.com/post/green-smoothie

Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here https://www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
https://www.belindawhelan.com/dailyhealthtracker

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac
 
If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!
 
 
Music Credit bensound.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Celiac Disease
• 14:32 Building Healthy Bones With Green Smoothies

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Now, it's no secret that, living with celiac disease, we can deal with a number of other health issues, and osteoporosis and osteopenia are two conditions that many people with celiac disease actually have to deal with, and it's to do with malabsorption of nutrients because their body is so damaged from the celiac disease. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about those conditions and how to prevent them and how to make sure that you live a long life with strong, healthy bones. Okay, so when we talk about malabsorption, when the small intestine is damaged, it is very hard for the villi to absorb the nutrients from the food that we consume, to be able to do its job properly and to be able to make sure that our body is getting all of the nutrients that it needs. Now, bones have a lot of needs. The bones become healthy and strong mostly through our diet, so we're going to be talking about some ways that you can improve your diet, as well as other areas of life that can increase your bone density. So there are some key areas that you need to focus on. There are a number of different nutrients that your body needs, and you generally get them from your diet, but we're going to talk about the most important ones today on today's episode. Now, I'm guessing you will know the very first one, because it's very common to hear about this, and it's basically calcium. So your body needs calcium for strong, healthy bones. It's actually the most important nutrient that your body needs.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Now, when you think of calcium, you may just think of dairy products, and if you are a plant-based eater or vegetarian or a vegan and you don't consume dairy, that might be one that's confusing for you. But you don't just have to get your calcium from dairy products. You can get them from things like almonds, you can get it from seeds. You can get it from sardines. There's other foods that you can get your calcium from. So it's not just those dairy products that we've been banged on our whole lives to drink milk and eat yogurt and have dairy products. That is not the case. You don't have to just get your calcium from them. Don't get me wrong. They're wonderful sources of calcium, but you can get it from eating a broad range of food as well. Now, your body produces new cells for your bones every single day, and this is why you need to consume calcium every single day.

Speaker 1: 3:08

And then, when we talk about calcium, we also need vitamin D. For that calcium to absorb into your bones, it needs to have that, I guess, support system from vitamin D, so you can get vitamin D from the sunshine making sure you're getting a healthy amount of sun each day, if possible. Making sure you're getting a healthy amount of sun each day if possible. Sometimes that can be hard when it's winter or if you live somewhere where you don't get that much sun. Here in Australia we're very lucky. We get a lot of sun exposure, but, of course, making sure you're doing it safely and talk about this in other episodes, but we won't go into that too much. You can also get it from supplementing your diet. You can get from salmon, you can get it from egg yolks. So it is important to have the calcium and the vitamin d working together.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Then we move on to magnesium. So magnesium is essential for bones and it works with the vitamin d and the calcium, so they all work together and you need to balance them out so that they all do work in harmony together, I guess, because when you don't have one, then the others won't work as well towards helping you have strong, healthy bones. So that's really, really important. Now you can supplement with magnesium, but it's best to get magnesium from your diet. So foods like spinach, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, black beans, brown rice, avocado, peanut butter there's lots of different options for making sure you're getting magnesium.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Now this is where I love talking about food, and I love talking about making sure you're eating a really broad diet of healthy foods because it helps towards all of these different factors. So obviously, you know bone health is so important and when you can have a broad diet, that helps with these macronutrients and micronutrients. So vitamin k is another essential one for bone health. So when we talk about vitamin k, it does store in the liver, so your body will take it as it needs and you don't need to be eating it every day. So you don't sorry, you don't need to be consuming vitamin k every day from your food. Your body will store it and use it as it needs. But, having said that, this is where that healthy diet comes in, because you can get vitamin K from things like green leafy vegetables such as broccoli and kale, and you can also get it in chicken. You can get it in a variety of different foods. So you know, it's that broadness of eating different foods rather than just eating packaged, processed foods, things that aren't actually giving you any nutrients whatsoever from your diet.

Speaker 1: 5:54

And then when we talk about macronutrients, protein is so, so important for your bone health. 50% of your bone is made up from protein. I've done an entire episode on protein, so I won't go into protein too much in this episode. I will link that episode below so that you can go back and listen to that and learn more about protein. But protein is so, so important for bone health.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Now, when we talk about adding food in, it's also important to focus on things that are depleting your bones. So caffeine is fine Caffeine is actually okay to have in your life but it's when you have excess amounts of caffeine. That's when it can do damage to your bones and that's when it can lead to problems. So if you're drinking a ridiculous amount of caffeine, then that's something you might want to look at reducing for the benefit of having healthy bones now and into the future. It's also important to cut back on soda, or soft drinks we like to call it here in Australia, but soda is leaching the calcium from your bones.

Speaker 1: 7:09

There is no benefit to drinking soft drink. Apart from, it may hit that dopamine and make you feel good. That is the only benefit whatsoever. But you can hit that dopamine from other sources. You can get that from drinking other drinks. You can get that from eating other pleasurable foods. You don't need to consume soft drinks or soda for your lifestyle, for your diet. They are doing nothing good for you and they're certainly not good for your bone health. So that's something to consider really cutting back on. When I work with clients that do drink soft drink, my recommendation is always to start by still having a soft, soft drink or a fizzy drink, but swapping it out to something that still has the fizz but doesn't have all the nasties in it. So something really simple, just like soda water, and then maybe just adding a little bit of cordial or some iced tea or something with it. So you've still got that sensation of the bubbly, but you're not doing all the damage. So get used to that and then wean yourself off of it and then go to drinking just plain drinks such as water and iced teas and things that aren't doing harm to your body. So that's something to really, really consider.

Speaker 1: 8:30

High sodium intake is another one that can be doing damage to your body and leaching the minerals from your bones. So if you consume a huge amount of processed and packaged foods, you are very likely eating too much sodium. We need salt in our body. Don't get me wrong. We definitely need salt. It's important for our body, but most people do consume too much salt. So something to consider that you might want to cut back on your salt intake. Or you know, you're already reading labels for gluten-free. Start taking notice of how much sodium is actually in the processed food that you are consuming and see if it's a ridiculous amount, because, yeah, it might really open your eyes and start to help you see that it's important to cut back on that sodium intake.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Now, a little while back, I did do an episode on the importance of weight training and when we do weight-bearing exercise, it does help build healthy bones. So if you are not already doing weight bearing exercises, I highly recommend that you add that into your weekly regime and find something that you love. Again, I will pop the link to that episode below for you to go check it out if you haven't already listened to it, because it explains it further and how that can help you. So, basically, osteopenia is low density of your bone, so your your bone density is lower than what it should be okay. But you can improve that and it's basically what happens before osteoporosis. So if you continue your, your lifestyle and your diet in a way that you have been, then that can head on down the path to getting osteoporosis. And when you get osteoporosis, that leads to so many issues such as being frail, having falls and breaking bones. It just it's not the path that we want to follow.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Now, if you have low bone mineral density because of celiac disease, because your body wasn't absorbing the nutrients, then this is your chance to just eat really well, look after your body, cut back on those areas that I said that you could cut back on and start introducing some weight bearing and really improve your bone mineral density. Now, when you were first diagnosed with celiac disease, your doctor should have recommended that you went and got a bone mineral density scan. I had one done. Thankfully, my bones were fine. I had only suffered with conditions for around about a year symptoms I should say for around about a year before I got my diagnosis. So I was very lucky that my body wasn't struggling with you know that malabsorption for too long.

Speaker 1: 11:21

But it is definitely recommended that everyone that gets celiac disease should go have that test, you know they can then see what their state of their bones is like and can keep an eye on it. Depending on your results, your doctor may recommend doing that regularly. It could become a yearly thing, it could be every couple of years. It depends on your age as well. It depends on how many years you've been suffering with symptoms. I can't give you the answers to that. That will depend on your unique situation with celiac disease and what your doctor recommends with you and for your future health. So it's definitely worth a conversation.

Speaker 1: 12:01

If you haven't had a bone mineral density test, I recommend that you go get one done and then you kind of know your baseline. You can also request to have blood tests done. So your blood test. Then they can check for your levels of your vitamins and they can see whether you're you know you're deficient in any areas and what you may need to really focus on, whether that be through diet or through supplements and moving forward. You can keep on track with making sure that you do have strong, healthy bones because, like I said, we want to be doing as much as we can for our future and this is what I love to focus on.

Speaker 1: 12:41

It's not just about living in the now, is it? It's not just you know I've got to eat gluten-free and that's my life. It's how can I make my future self better in the moment, in today? What can I focus on today to be healthier for the long term? And this is where it's at? This is focusing on health, focusing on the benefits of eating a broad diet, and really honing in on what you can do, what is in your control.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Pretty much every food that I mentioned today is nothing that is out of the ordinary. It's nothing that's unavailable to us because it's not gluten-free. They were all naturally gluten-free foods, so they're easy to obtain, they're easy to consume and they're easy to make part of your lifestyle, part of your, you know. Focus on what you can Think about what I've spoken about today, which foods you like and you could probably increase more of in your diet and enjoy in your lifestyle, because sometimes we get in such a rut and we can't look outside of the box. We can't see the forest for the trees because we think it's all too hard.

Speaker 1: 13:57

But maybe it could be starting with a smoothie and having some almonds and some seeds in there, and then some baby spinach leaves and maybe some milk with it. If that's something that you consume and you've just tipped so many boxes just by having a green smoothie, so obviously there's more to it than that. You need to have some fruit with it to sweeten it up, but I do have a recipe for that on my website so I'll link that as well. But by having a green smoothie, you're getting so many of those boxes ticked from what we talked about today. So you might want to start small and just go.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Yes, I am going to start with a green smoothie every morning or every afternoon for a pick-me-up and that's going to start to help with that absorption and those beautiful nutrients that your bones need to be strong and healthy. So I hope that inspires you. I hope that helps. You see that there is hope. It's not just you've got osteopenia and you know osteoporosis is inevitable. It's not like that at all. You can start today. You can start building healthy, strong bones and you can do this. I believe in you. If you've got any comments or any questions, pop them below. If you're on youtube or if you're listening on the podcast, just head over to instagram at the healthy celiac and you can send me a message there and I'll get back to you. So thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode has helped you and inspired you and, yeah, let me know if you want to start introducing green smoothies, because they can be a game changer. All right, take care.