The Health of Your Bones linked to Brain Health

 

As we age, we lose bone density (also called bone mass), a measure of calcium and other minerals in bones. In some cases, losing bone density can lead to osteoporosis, a disease that can make your bones more likely to break.

A research suggests a connection between reduced bone density with aging and cognitive decline.

In a study published in Radiology (the journal of the Radiological Society of North America), it was found that people with low bone density were more likely to experience faster deterioration of cognitive function as they aged as well as accelerated age-related injury to brain tissue. Results were most striking in people with type 2 diabetes.

The lead study author, Sara Momtazmanesh, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of radiology and radiological sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said those participants with the lowest quarter of bone density were linked to a 0.3 percent faster decline in their global cognitive score compared with those in the highest quarter bone density group. (The cognitive testing for the study assessed overall thinking ability, covering factors such as memory, language, attention, and the speed at processing information under time pressure.) 

The connection was strongest for people with diabetes, according to Deborah Kado, professor of medicine specializing in geriatrics at Stanford University and co-director of the Stanford Longevity Center in California.

She noted that diabetes patients are at particular risk for cardiovascular problems, including vascular dementia (caused by issues that disrupt blood flow to the brain).

Kado suggested: “As people age, they tend to lose the calcium in their bones and gain calcium in their arteries, including in the small arteries that are in our brain,” she says.

Because the study is observational, it could not demonstrate whether bone loss causes brain change, but simply that there appears to be a link. There are likely many shared risk factors for different diseases that might not seem related, such as osteoporosis and dementia, according to Kado.

 That suggests that taking steps toward adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors might decrease the risk of multiple diseases at once. These measures that may simultaneously help bone and brain health include: 

• Following a diet of minimally processed foods
• Getting regular physical activity, including weight-bearing resistance training
• Not smoking
• Keeping alcohol consumption to a minimum
• Checking vitamin D levels (Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium. Vitamin D also plays an important role in brain health and cognitive function.)
• Keeping diabetes and blood pressure well managed to protect blood vessels in both the bones and the brain