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What Is the Primary Prevention of Osteoporosis?

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According to public health experts, there are three steps to prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary prevention is the first level of defense and is all about preventing the disease from actually occurring. Primary preventions are actions to prevent any presence of a disease and come in the form of reducing risks that cause a disease or educating on how to prevent a disease.

Secondary prevention starts when a disease is present in the body, but shows no signs or symptoms. Secondary prevention catches the early onset of a disease, usually through screening, and tackles it before it gets worse.

Tertiary prevention is geared towards treating or managing a disease, and helping people find ways to live with it and prevent it from causing further damage or even death.

Primary Prevention

Today I’m tackling primary osteoporosis prevention. Keeping strong bones is the key to primary prevention and it’s a pretty easy 1, 2, 3:

  1. calcium;
  2. vitamin D and
  3. weight-bearing exercise.

Your body needs calcium to build strong, healthy bones. Calcium can be found in calcium-fortified orange juice, cereal, and various dairy products. 

Vitamin D is important to help your body absorb the calcium. Don’t rely on the sun to get your vitamin D — look for other ways to get it.

Finally, strong healthy bones need exercise! Exercising can not only get you in shape and reduce your risk of heart disease, but it can also increase bone density. Make sure your exercise is weight-bearing—cycling and swimming don’t add enough stress to the body to help your bones.

Let’s get primary and prevent osteoporosis from even showing up!


Posted: 12/5/2016; Revised: 08/14/20. 
As a service to our readers, American Bone Health provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of the last review on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician

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