Reprinted from the ACJ - November, 2002
Often I feel like I missed the boat. I came of age in the `70s, not the sixties. Though I sometimes help my older brothers remember them (they were there). I didn`t buy and sell a million shares of the dot.coms in the `90s. And I failed to download the entire Beatles catalog from Napster before they shut it down. Now I find I also missed some important health information until it was too late; building healthy strong bones.
Doctors report that the density, or strength, of our bones is determined almost exclusively before we reach the age of 25. After that all we can do is fight to maintain the bone we `banked` as kids. As we age, our bones become thinner, more porous, resulting in the medical condition known as Osteoporosis. Osteo is Greek for bone and Porosis means por-oh-oh! Now I remember `Wonder builds strong bones`; and growing up in Wisconsin the milk flowed like water. But no one ever told me, or my folks for that matter, that if I didn`t build a solid framework playing after school and eating right, I would crumble to dust as an old man. If you have kids, or are yourself a kid, be sure they get plenty of Calcium from milk, yogurt, salmon and green vegetables. That explains why I may have a gelatin skeleton; salmon and spinach, yuck! The key to utilizing all that calcium is Vitamin D. It enables calcium to be absorbed into our bones. Twenty minutes of sunshine per day will allow your body to make its own supply of vitamin D. Because we receive about twenty minutes of sun a month during the winter in Wisco, they load the milk with vitamin D. Once the kids are loaded up with the proper foods, it is time to `shake well`. Exercise, weight bearing exercise, is the key. They don`t have to bear that much weight; just their own. Running; jumping; soccer; just being a kid is enough. By stressing the bones with moderate activity, it makes them stronger. So, if the kids are surfing the web and not the ocean; or riding the couch and not a bike, hand them a glass of milk and a tuna and arugula sandwich and shove them out the door.
Now for us geezers. It is not all bad news. We may be working with a finite amount of bone tissue, but we can maintain strong bones by following the same advice as for the young`uns. A diet rich in calcium and vitamin D. From the age of 30 to 50 years, try to get 1000 milligrams (mg) per day of calcium. Over 50, shoot for 1200 mg. Food is your best source, but supplement if you have to. Calcium Citrate is the best pill but Calcium Carbonate also works. So you can count the handful of antacids you down after a stressful day in the shop. In addition, get some vitamin D from sunshine, fortified milk, or another pill. 400 international units (IU) per day until age 70; and 600 IU after. Walk, jog, or dance in place while rodding out that radiator (sounds like a Richard Simmons video). Stress your bones a little each day. Two forty minute, weight bearing workouts a week will keep you at a zero balance or even increase your bone mass by 1% per year. Do nothing and you can lose up to 2.5% per year. Starting at age 30 that loss will turn you into a puddle by the age of 75. Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration but 1 out of 2 women and 1 out of 8 men suffer an osteoporosis related bone fracture in their lifetime. Many folks never fully recover. To add insult to injury, elevated blood lead levels sometimes associated with radiator shop workers (that other shop, not yours) can negatively affect your bones ability to regenerate itself. So bone maintenance is of extra importance. Use it or lose it.
Addressing injury prevention; take time around the shop, and at home, to prevent falls. Use the hand rails on stairs, clean up spills before someone slips. Remove throw rugs or mats if they are not needed and may cause you to catch a toe. Raise the hoist all the way up, not to forehead level. By practicing what we preach here, your leg bone will stay connected to your thigh bone, and your thigh bone connected to your hip bone; now hear the word of the Lord.
The above article was written by David M. Brown, Chief
Engineer of Johnson Manufacturing Company, Inc. and is published by
JOHNSON with the expressed approval of the National Automotive Radiator
Service Association and the Automotive Cooling Journal. Other reproduction
or distribution of this information is forbidden without the written
consent of JOHNSON and NARSA/ACJ. All rights reserved.
JOHNSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY
114 Lost Grove
Road / PO Box 96 / Princeton, Iowa 52768-0096
Phone 563-289-5123 or
Fax 563-289-3825