By Pure Matters Your bones are constantly changing. Old bone
continuously breaks down and is replaced by new. When you're
young, your body makes bone fast enough to replace what's lost.
This helps you reach your peak bone mass, the point at which
your bones are strongest. At about age 30 (if you're a woman;
later, if you're a man), you start to lose bone mass faster than
your body can replace it, according to the National Institutes
of Health (NIH). This increases your risk for osteoporosis, a
disease that causes bones to become less dense. This makes them
weak and more vulnerable to breaks. The disease affects 10
million Americans, 8 million of whom are women. Men begin to
catch up to women in rate of bone loss as they age. By ages 65
to 70, men and women lose bone at the same rate, the NIH says.
And the ability to absorb calcium, which is important for bone
health, decreases for both men and women. Women's bone loss is
tied to menopause and the lack of estrogen; for men,
osteoporosis is often caused by medi