Bone benefits

The Glendale Commission on the Status of Women is joining forces with Glendale Memorial Hospital in an awareness campaign encouraging people of all ages to get more calcium and Vitamin D in their diet to prevent and treat osteoporosis.

Dr. Manuel Momjian, a family practice physician affiliated with the hospital, will make a presentation on osteoporosis during the commission’s monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, which is broadcast on GTV6.

Every year, the commission adopts a different focus, said commission Chairwoman Paula Devine. This year they decided to focus on women’s health and bring a different issue to the forefront each month. They’ve already covered stroke, brain injuries, heart disease in women and fitness.

“The National Assn. for Commissions on Women has as its primary medical focus for women osteoporosis awareness,” she said. “So having gone to a national conference and finding this out, I decided in our year of health, our commission should join the national commission by putting an osteoporosis program into our community.”

Momjian will also give a seminar, “Osteoporosis and You,” on June 9, she said.

“We want to make women and men in this community aware of osteoporosis and the prevention of it because it is a natural progression as we get older,” Devine said. “Our bones become brittle, and we become more susceptible to falls and breaks and injuries.”

Calcium is necessary for making one’s muscles work and helps in the conduction through the nerves, Momjian said. Calcium is stored in the bones, and as the body uses calcium, the reserves get depleted.

“If we are not getting enough calcium in our diet, we lose some of our bone mass,” Momjian said. “As we get older, some of that bone mass cannot be replaced.”

Parents should start early in getting children to exercise and eat a diet rich in calcium, he said.

By age 30, a person reaches their peak bone mass, he said.

“If you’ve gotten enough calcium and Vitamin D as a young adolescent and have done weight-bearing exercise, your peak bone mass will be higher at age 30, and after that everyone starts losing bone mass,” he said.