A recent University of California, San Francisco study indicates that high animal protein intake may be linked to increased risk of bone loss and hip fracture in elderly women. Lead author Deborah Sellmeyer said the study points to ways women can improve bone health.

"We should be encouraged to eat more vegetables and realize that our diets play an important role for our bones as we get older," said Sellmeyer, who is UCSF assistant professor of medicine and director of the Bone Density Clinic at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion. The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures, which will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in January, looked at the diets of 1,035 women, particularly focusing on the protein intake from animal and vegetable products.

The study's results suggest that increased vegetable intake may improve bone health, while high animal intake decreases it. This deterioration of bone mass occurs mainly because animal products contain high amounts of acid, which, as a woman gets older, is difficult to expel from the body without using bone to neutralize it.

Sellmeyer emphasizes that the point of the study is not to encourage women to give up eating meat and cheese, but rather to stress the importance of eating fruits and vegetables. "We want people to work in more fruits and vegetables into their diets -- not only because of the impact it could have on bone health, but also the impact it can have on lowering the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses," she said. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

(From Yahoo)