BY: DR THOMAS KAISER
DEAR READER, there is quite a bit of confusion about osteoporosis and other problems with bones and joints.
Osteoporosis means lack of strong and healthy bone. Osteopenia is the pre-stage of it. Both conditions do not normally hurt until a bone breaks. Most commonly affected are the wrist, thigh bone and the spine.
Osteoarthrosis means wear and tear of joints. The more inflammatory form of it is named osteoarthritis. These conditions do hurt and make joints stiff but do not make them more prone to fractures.
These two illnesses are not really closely connected. They can occur together and are a particularly unfortunate combination.
Osteoporosis is a very common disease from people aged 50 onwards. Doctors are more likely to discover it in women because menopause tends to be the starting point. In males, it often goes unrecognised until the patient turns up in casualty with a broken bone. In younger age groups, osteoporosis can be caused by certain medications, like steroids.
The diagnosis can be made accurately with DEXA scans, a form of digital x-ray examination.
There is effective treatment on hand. Calcium with Vitamin D supplements, Bi-Phosphonates, Calcitonin and replacement of Oestrogen and Testosterone are all effective treatments and are used in different stages of the disease.
Osteoporosis is a real killer. It is known that around one-third of women do sustain an osteoporotic fracture, at some stage. All too often, the fracture of the femur is the end of independent living and many thousands of patients die every year from complications of thigh and spinal fractures.
Proprioceptive Vibration Training
This complicated sounding term stands for a method that was first discovered by a scientist in East Germany, in 1960. Practical use of it was first made by Russian space programs, to prevent muscle wasting and osteoporosis in cosmonauts. The Russians could keep the astronauts up to 400 days in space, while the US crews had to return after 120 days to avoid permanent damage to the crews of their space ships.
The method is based on the fact that vibrations, at a certain frequency, stimulate the muscle to contract automatically. These contractions lead to muscle build-up. Healthy muscles that are used and strong bones go hand in hand. If there is no weight bearing, or tension on bones, they weaken at an astonishingly fast rate. The principle “use it or lose it” is especially true for bones and muscles.
What was first used in space is now available in much trendier versions.
The mainly two commercially available machines that promise to make your bones and muscles stronger are the Galileo and the Powerplate. Both machines work using the same principle.
I remember the first ever Powerplate very well, which I encountered at a conference, in Monaco, a few years ago. The Powerplate was demonstrated as a machine that could also make your skin firmer and fresher, and even help against cellulite. The stand of the Powerplate was constantly surrounded by many keen doctors, who all wanted to scientifically evaluate the effect of the machine. The great interest the Powerplate created had, of course, nothing to do with the beautiful model that was exercising on it!
The vibration machines are perfectly suited for our modern lifestyle, as they promise great results in much less time than you would otherwise have to spend in the gym. Fifteen minutes, two to three times per week, are said to have the same effect as three times 60 minutes of conventional sweating in the gym. The promises are supported by quite a few studies.
I have a colleague in Frankfurt, who uses a Powerplate in his practice to treat patients, after musculoskeletal injuries and also osteoporosis sufferers.
There is data that the Powerplate could help the muscle wasting of patients with MS. And, of course, the Powerplate promises weight loss – rightly so, because if you have more muscle, you have more capacity to burn fat.
I personally think the vibration machines are complementary to other methods and need to be used under professional guidance. However, they do not train the cardiovascular system, meaning the most important muscle of the body – the heart.
I would like to encourage you to try it out. We do have a Powerplate in the Vale do Lobo Gym and the technical responsible for it. Claudia is one of the master trainers for it, in Portugal.
There is also a chance to hop on a Powerplate in Living Fitness, in Almancil, which is the main distributor of Poweplates in Portugal and you can get in-depth advice there.
As always, it is important to have realistic expectations. No machine will make you lose weight automatically or turn you into an athlete in twenty minutes.
In addition to a balanced fitness program with two sessions of cardiovascular work out per week, the Powerplate can be a very valuable additional tool for better health and fitness.
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