10 Natural Ways to Build Healthy Bones

Building healthy bones is extremely important.

Minerals are incorporated into your bones during childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Once you reach 30 years of age, you have achieved peak bone mass.

If not enough bone mass is created during this time or bone loss occurs later in life, you have an increased risk of developing fragile bones that break easily (1Trusted Source).

Fortunately, many nutrition and lifestyle habits can help you build strong bones and maintain them as you age.

Here are 10 natural ways to build healthy bones.

1. Eat Lots of Vegetables
Vegetables are great for your bones.

They’re one of the best sources of vitamin C, which stimulates the production of bone-forming cells. In addition, some studies suggest that vitamin C’s antioxidant effects may protect bone cells from damage (2Trusted Source).

Vegetables also seem to increase bone mineral density, also known as bone density.

Bone density is a measurement of the amount of calcium and other minerals found in your bones. Both osteopenia (low bone mass) and osteoporosis (brittle bones) are conditions characterized by low bone density.

A high intake of green and yellow vegetables has been linked to increased bone mineralization during childhood and the maintenance of bone mass in young adults (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source).

Eating lots of vegetables has also been found to benefit older women.

A study in women over 50 found those who consumed onions most frequently had a 20% lower risk of osteoporosis, compared to women who rarely ate them (6Trusted Source).

One major risk factor for osteoporosis in older adults is increased bone turnover, or the process of breaking down and forming new bone (7Trusted Source).

In a three-month study, women who consumed more than nine servings of broccoli, cabbage, parsley or other plants high in bone-protective antioxidants had a decrease in bone turnover