Boost Bone Healing With Top Foods, Essential Oils, and Supplements

7 minute read

Accidents happen, and the wrong pressure placed on any bone can cause a break or a fracture. Especially as we age, maintaining an ease of mobility is essential to our well-being.

The good news is that by following a certain diet, you can naturally speed up the healing of your bones, so you can get back to normal.

A special diet, use of specific essential oils, lifestyle modifications, and some supplemental support can help your bones to heal faster from breaks and fractures.

In fact, the five steps below have been shown to significantly increase the healing time for bones. You may still have to wear a cast, but these natural options will help boost your healing powers and get the cast off as quickly as possible.

The Healing Process of Bones

Fractured bones heal in three separate phases: Inflammation marks the first stage and occurs immediately after the fracture occurs. Blood is rushed to the injury site to clean things up and blood clots begin to form.

Repair cells are also delivered to the site, and they differentiate into specialized cells, called osteoblasts, that build new bone. The repair process performed by these cells typically takes months as new bone is formed.

A reparative stage begins after this in which proteins produced by the osteoblasts consolidate to form a callus. This callus is soft to begin, but it hardens over time as the bone begins to weave together.

The final step is a remodeling phase where the callus matures and gets stronger. As osteoblasts form new bone and osteoclasts remove older bone cells, your bone reaches optimal strength and function returns to normal.

Bone Health Based Diet Tips and Plan

By changing your diet, you can enhance bone health, allowing your bones to heal faster when damaged. Certain foods contain the vitamins and minerals that are essential for strong and healthy bones, and these should be your focus.

Calcium is responsible for building and maintaining bone structure and vitamin D ensures calcium is absorbed properly. But, while calcium and vitamin D are well-known to be required for bone health, there are others that play just as important of a role.

Magnesium is an essential mineral to bone health because the calcium you digest is useless without it. Unfortunately, many Americans are magnesium deficient, which contributes to increasing numbers of broken bones and diseases, like osteoporosis.

Your body cannot use calcium without magnesium, so foods like fermented dairy and leafy greens, which are high in both essential minerals, are ideal if you want your bones to heal quickly.

The formation of a callus is what allows new bone to grow and fractures to repair them. The presence of zinc in your body helps this callus to form faster, so you want to include zinc-rich foods, such as grass-fed beef, chia seeds, and flaxseed, in your diet, too.

Vitamin C also plays a role in callus formation, and the stages of bone healing progress faster with significant vitamin C levels.

Similar to how calcium needs magnesium, it also needs vitamin K. Without it calcium cannot bind to the bone, and the bone protein osteocalcin cannot form properly.

Vitamin K not only helps to support bone formation, but it reduces calcium loss and supports fracture healing. Vitamin B6 is necessary in this regard. too, as it modulates the effects of vitamin K in reducing bone healing.

A Simple Diet for Bone Health

Essentially, a balanced diet that includes fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, organic meat, and fermented dairy will enhance bone strength and speed up healing time.

The foods you want to avoid, so the healing process isn’t delayed, include alcohol, excess sugar and salt, processed foods, and conventional meat. Too much of these items will cause inflammation and an acidic environment, both of which contribute to weaker bone density.

Bone-Supporting Supplements

Calcium and vitamin D will always be the most important supplements. If you feel you are not getting enough of these minerals, you can find all you need through supplemental capsules.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to increased risk of bone fractures, so it is believed that maintaining levels within your blood will improve bone healing and prevent future breaks.

Other bone healing supplements include calcium and magnesium, and often these can be found together in the form on magnesium chelate. You would also benefit from supplemental omega-3 fatty acids as found in fish or krill oil.

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These fatty acids help to prevent and control the inflammation that is thought to weaken bone density and structure. Since inflammation prevents healing, keeping it under control will enhance your ability to heal faster.

Essential Oils for Your Bone

There are three essential bone-healing oils you want to have on hand to speed up bone repair. They can all be found at health food stores, mixed into a topical application, and spread generously over the broken bone area.

♦ Cypress oil improves blood circulation to the affected area

♦ Fir needle essential oil helps to repair the bone

♦ Helichrysum oil is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory

Essential oils cannot directly fix a fractured bone, but they certainly can help speed up the process and reduce pain. While the oils mentioned above help provide healing support, others can help to ease pain.

Peppermint and eucalyptus oils have analgesic properties that allow them to soothe and reduce pain. The cooling effect they provide relieves pain and discomfort brought on by inflammation.

The Bottom Line

Broken bones happen, and the likelihood increases as we get older. Bone density decreases as you age, so you need to be prepared.

By incorporating the right vitamins, minerals and joint health supplements, you stand a good chance of preventing fractures, or you can speed up your healing time, should they occur.

Take care of your bones with the right foods, supplements, and oils, so you can bounce back from any break with minimal inconvenience.