It's no secret that overweight and obesity are big problems in the United States. At present, two-thirds of all Americans need to lose weight, and the number of overweight children and adults is growing at an alarming rate.

And it's no secret that obesity is bad for health. Excess body fat raises levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglycerides while also lowering HDL ("good") cholesterol levels. Obesity impairs the body's responsiveness to insulin, raising blood sugar and insulin levels. But obesity does more than produce bad numbers: it also leads to bad health, increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, cancer, osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver, and depression. All in all, obesity is a killer; in fact, obesity and lack of exercise are responsible for about 1,000 American deaths each day, and if present trends continue, they will soon overtake smoking as the leading preventable causes of death in the U.S.

Q. I have osteoporosis and a recent spine fracture. I hear there's a minor surgical procedure that can fix the fracture. Can you tell me anything about it?

A. Fractures of the bones in the spinal column (vertebrae) are common in people with osteoporosis; about 750,000 occur each year in the United States. In this type of fracture, called a compression fracture, the vertebra collapses, often causing pain, a gradual loss of height, or stooped posture. Even if the fracture doesn't cause obvious symptoms, having one fracture increases the risk of having another one. The cumulative effect of multiple fractures is chronic pain, disability, depression, and difficulty managing normal daily activities.

Vitamin D has been talked about as the vitamin — the one that might help fend off everything from cancer to heart disease to autoimmune disorders, if only we were to get enough of it. “Whoa!” is the message from a committee of experts assembled by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to update recommendations for vitamin D (and for calcium). […]

Recent reports have women wondering if they should stop taking this widely prescribed osteoporosis drug.

In 1995, the FDA approved alendronate (Fosamax) for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis, a bone-weakening condition that affects more than eight million women and causes 1.5 million fractures each year in the United States. Fosamax increases bone mineral density and significantly reduces the risk of spine, hip, and wrist fractures in women with osteoporosis and in those with low bone density that doesn't meet the criteria for osteoporosis (a condition called osteopenia).

Osteoporosis in Men

As if there wasn't enough for men to worry about: Osteoporosis, the bone-thinning condition once considered a disease affecting just women, is now coming to light as an under-diagnosed condition in men. In fact, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 2 million American men have osteoporosis and another 12 million are at risk for it. Men over 50 are actually at a greater risk for an osteoporosis-related fracture than they are for prostate cancer.

Osteoporosis has been largely overlooked in men for a few reasons. Men generally have larger and stronger bones than women by the time they are 30, when peak bone density is achieved. Also, men do not experience rapid bone thinning like women do following menopause. But, as in women, the bones of men start to gradually thin and lose strength after age 30. And bone density is affected by heredity, diet, sex hormones, lifestyle choices, physical activity, and the use of certain medications. So although men have a leg up on women in terms of peak bone density, they can still get into trouble if the conditions are right.

A dozen yoga poses, performed daily, may increase bone density.

 Image: tetmc/Thinkstock

Like most of us, you may have become accustomed to thinking that only common weight-bearing exercises—walking, running, jumping, and lifting—provide enough stress on your bones to maintain or increase their density. So a scientific paper titled "Twelve-Minute Daily Yoga Routine Reverses Osteoporotic Bone Loss" came as a surprise. And it appeared to offer women another option to build bone.

What the study found

The researchers who designed the study noted that yoga's established benefits—including better balance and coordination—protect against falling, a major cause of osteoporotic fractures. They wanted to determine whether the yoga poses they selected might also increase bone density by imposing force on the spine and hips.