Nutrition has a greater impact on mass and strong bones, than physical exercise. To such conclusion Scientists from the University of Michigan (University of Michigan), studied the influence of mineral additives and physical activity in mice. The authors reported that the results of the study surprised them.
In addition, even after the mice stopped exercise, they were able to preserve the growth of bone tissue until then, until they ate foods enriched with minerals.
The researchers examined the mice after eight weeks of physical activity in which one group of mice was fed regular food and the other food enriched with minerals. Then mice again examined eight weeks after the cessation of physical activity. The results of the study were published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Long diet with mineral additives contributes not only to weight gain, and bone strength, but also to maintain their condition after cessation of exercise. The study was on mice, but for people, with age, people find it easier to follow a special diet than to exercise, says David Kohn (David Kohn), the author of the study from the University of Michigan.
The second important conclusion of the researchers is that even just one diet but no physical exercise has a beneficial effect on bone health. And it surprised Kon, as he expected only a combination of exercise with a normal diet, should increase the strength of bones.
Our data indicate that prolonged adherence to a diet with mineral additives useful to prevent age-related loss of bone tissue and bone thinning, even in the absence of exercise, says Professor Cohn.
According to Kohn, most other studies have addressed the impact of increasing the amount of calcium in the diet. However, researchers from the University of Michigan increased the number of both calcium and phosphorus. And an increase in both components has brought considerable benefits.
However, according to Cohn, this does not mean that people should rush to buy food supplements with calcium and phosphorus. The results of the study cannot be directly extrapolated from mice to humans, but they still provide researchers some kind of starting point for new research.
It is known that people reach peak bone mass in their twenty years, and then it gradually decreases. Says Kon, the question is how to maximize the amount of bone tissue, while people are still young that at the beginning of the process of reduction in bone mass they were in the best position.
Dmitry Kolesnik