The fear that every day you may break a bone or be heading towards a quality of life hindered by a stoop or hip problems can be terrifying; this is what Osteoporosis can do to you! Everyone would like to know what Osteoporosis symptoms are so at the first signs of Osteoporosis they can seek medical advice. The only problem is there are NO clear symptoms of Osteoporosis! Pains in the hip and spine may sometimes trigger people to seek medical advice but there are many conditions and ways you can hurt those parts of your body. So what can you do to find out if you have or might get Osteoporosis?

First we need to look at what Osteoporosis is and what causes it.

Osteoporosis is a condition where the bones of the body start to lose density and become more frail and prone to breaking. It can also cause bone to collapse upon itself creating a "dowagers hump" when the spine and hip compact together.

How do our bones become so frail though? This is because bone is a living tissue that is constantly being regrown using two major cells in bone forming; osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Simply put osteoclasts are cells that move through the bone looking for old parts that need renewal and destroy that old bone leaving a gap. Osteoblasts are cells that move through the bone looking for those empty spaces and fill them with new bone. In this way the bone is renewed all the time.

Osteoporosis is the condition when there are not enough osteoblasts to fill all of the gaps left by the osteoclasts leaving the bone peppered with many, many small gaps that lower bone density and cause the fragility of your bones.

So we can ask what are the symptoms of losing osteoblasts?

Unfortunately this is not something we can see or measure easily by ourselves; instead we must look at WHY we would lose so many osteoblasts and track down the root causes of Osteoporosis.

The primary cause of this poor bone renewal is in our blood. If the blood in our body is too acidic it can strip away calcium from the bone to restore a healthy blood balance, however this calcium is not replaced quickly enough to the bones and the osteoblasts cannot keep up. This acidic blood is mainly caused by diets high in meat, processed food and oddly enough dairy products. While dairy products put calcium into your body they also acidize the blood making those gains worthless combined with other dietary deficiencies and chemical intake like smoking, excessive alcohol and poor exersize (especially lack of weight training).

So what does all this mean? What Osteoporosis symptoms are there? Well, if you follow the causes of the condition we see diet is the main factor. While we cannot sense nor feel the bone fragility we can inspect our diet, and lifestyle if it is too full of foods that will make your blood more acidic and is lacking in good weight based exercise there is a very good chance your body will start stripping away your precious bones! The only real way to test for signs of osteoporosis and check your bone density is by seeing a doctor and asking for a specialized test called a 'bone mineral density' (BMD) test.