HEIGHT, LOSS OF
Description and Possible Medical Problems
I recently saw a patient I hadn’t seen for about a year. She seemed a little shorter than the last time she had visited me, and I asked her if she thought she had shrunk.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “My clothes fit differently, and when I stand at my kitchen sink, I can’t see out the window anymore.”
We measured her height, and sure enough, she had lost about ? -inch since her last office visit. She was concerned about the possible causes of her loss of height and asked me if there was anything she could do. She was in good health, and I told her she had nothing to worry about.
Treatment
A slight loss of height each year is a normal part of the aging process. Since the vettebrae of the spine become more porous with age, they can gradually compress onto one another, decreasing the length of the spine and thus your height.
One way to prevent further height loss and even help reverse the bone degeneration is exercise. Walking is an excellent activity that will help replenish the bones with lost calcium because it is a weight-bearing exercise that strengthens the entire skeletal system. Walking will also
strengthen your muscles, which will help to support your spine better.
Eating more calcium-rich foods such as low-fat dairy products and taking a 1000-milligram calcium supplement at least once a day can also help replace calcium in bones that have begun to deteriorate due to osteoporosis, which is a normal part of aging.
In postmenopausal women, estrogen replacement therapy can help the bones retain calcium and thus prevent future fractures and further deterioration.
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