Diet for Bones and Joints

Diet for Bones and Joints

A healthy balanced diet will help you build healthy bones from an early age and maintain them throughout your life.

You need sufficient calcium to keep your bones healthy and vitamin D to help your body absorb calcium. Poor bone health can cause conditions such as rickets and osteoporosis and increase the risk of breaking a bone from a fall later in life.

A) Calcium

Adults need 700mg of calcium a day. You should be able to get all the calcium you need by eating a varied and balanced diet.

Good sources of calcium include:

• milk, cheese, and other dairy foods
• green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, and okra, but not spinach
• soya beans
• tofu
• plant-based drinks (such as soya drinks) with added calcium
• nuts
• bread and anything made with fortified flour
• fish where you eat the bones, such as sardines and pilchards. 
• Although spinach contains a lot of calcium, it also contains oxalate, which reduces calcium absorption, and it is therefore not a good source of calcium.

B) Vitamin D

Adults need 10 micrograms (400 International Units or IU) of vitamin D a day.

It's difficult to get all the vitamin D we need from our diet and we get most of our vitamin D from the action of the sun on our skin. Good sources of vitamin D:

• oily fish, such as salmon, sardines, and mackerel
• egg yolks
• fortified foods, such as some fat spreads and breakfast cereals

If you've been diagnosed with osteoporosis, your doctor may prescribe calcium and vitamin D supplements as well as osteoporosis drug treatments if they have concerns that your calcium intake may be low.

Category:Diet for Bones and Joints