Facts About Bones: What’s Your Bone IQ?

Has pain in your bones ever alert­ed you that a storm is com­ing? Have you ever won­dered if men tru­ly can’t get osteo­poro­sis? Have you heard that your bones regrow every few years?

There are many fas­ci­nat­ing facts about bones, but not every­thing you’ve heard about them is true. Play this game of ​“True or False” to test your bone knowledge.

True or False: Your Bones Can Tell You When a Storm Is Coming.

Answer: True.

If you haven’t expe­ri­enced this, you might be rais­ing an eye­brow. But when some­one says that their bones can feel a storm com­ing, they might be onto something.

When the weath­er gets worse, atmos­pher­ic pres­sure decreas­es and press­es less on the body. This can allow tis­sue in your bones to swell, lead­ing to aches in your joints (where bones meet). If the pres­sure drops sud­den­ly – which can hap­pen with storms – the aching may be more notice­able. These fluc­tu­a­tions in air pres­sure can make you feel the weath­er chang­ing, espe­cial­ly if you have a con­di­tion like arthritis.

True or False: Osteo­poro­sis Only Affects Women.

Answer: False.

Osteo­poro­sis is when your bones become thin, weak, and more like­ly to break. Women are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to devel­op osteo­poro­sis than men. This is because they typ­i­cal­ly have small­er and thin­ner bones, and the loss of estro­gen dur­ing menopause can speed up bone loss.

How­ev­er, that doesn’t mean that men can’t get it.

• About 2 mil­lion men in the US have osteo­poro­sis, and 12 mil­lion are at risk for devel­op­ing it. 
• Up to 1 in 4 men who are 50 or old­er will break a bone because of osteoporosis.
• A man over age 50 has a high­er like­li­hood of break­ing a bone because of osteo­poro­sis than of get­ting prostate cancer.

Read on Duly Health and Care: What in the World Is a Bone Den­si­ty Scan — And Do I Need One?

True or False: Babies are born with all of their bones.

Answer: Sort of.

Babies are actu­al­ly born with more bones than an adult.

Most adults have 206 bones. Babies are born with any­where from 275 to 300 bones. The extra bones even­tu­al­ly fuse togeth­er, bring­ing the total bone count down. This process ends by about age 25. At that point, your bones are the same size they will be for the rest of your life.

And here’s a lit­tle fun fact: Com­ing in at about 18 inch­es long, the thigh bone (femur) is the biggest bone in your body. It’s also the strongest one – it can sup­port as much as 30 times your body weight.

Read on Duly Health and Care: Grow­ing Pains

True or False: Most of an Adult’s Bones Are in Their Hands and Feet.

Answer: True.

Your hands and feet might seem like small parts of your body, but they are packed with bones. Each hand (includ­ing your wrists and fin­gers) has 27 bones, while each foot has 26 bones. That brings the grand total of bones in your hands and feet to 106.

True or False: Bones Are the Hard­est Sub­stance in the Body.

Answer: False.

That hon­or belongs to tooth enam­el. Tooth enam­el is the out­er cov­er­ing of your tooth, and it helps pro­tect against cav­i­ties and damage.

There is a com­mon myth that teeth are bones. How­ev­er, bones are made of car­ti­lage. They con­tain bone mar­row, which is a soft, fat­ty tis­sue in your bones where blood cells form. Also, if you break a bone, it can some­times heal itself.

On the oth­er hand, teeth do not have car­ti­lage or bone mar­row. If you break a tooth, you will need to get it fixed – it can’t heal on its own.

True or False: Bro­ken Bones Can Regrow.

Answer: True.

Bro­ken bones can grow back. It can take a while to ful­ly heal from a bro­ken bone, but the new bone begins grow­ing with­in just a few weeks.

Some bro­ken bones require surgery, but many can heal on their own. How­ev­er, the heal­ing process is the same no mat­ter what.

True or False: Your Bones Regen­er­ate Every 10 Years.

Answer: True.

When your skele­ton forms and grows into the adult size, it’s called mod­el­ing. But bone for­ma­tion doesn’t stop there. Once your body is done mod­el­ing, it goes through a process called remod­el­ing (also called regen­er­at­ing). This hap­pens about every 10 years.

Dur­ing remod­el­ing, your body replaces old pieces of bone with new, fresh bone tis­sue. This ensures that your bones stay strong and can sup­ply cal­ci­um to your body.

While remod­el­ing keeps your bones strong, it can lead to prob­lems as you age. The remod­el­ing process can become unbal­anced as you get old­er and end up caus­ing loss of bone struc­ture and strength. Even­tu­al­ly, this can lead to bone dis­eases like osteoporosis.

Also read: Tips for Main­tain­ing Well­ness at Every Age

True or False: Every Bone in the Body Is Con­nect­ed to Another.

Answer: Almost True.

Of your 206 bones, 205 of them are con­nect­ed to at least one oth­er bone. The excep­tion is a horse­shoe-shaped bone called the hyoid. Since it isn’t con­nect­ed, it is some­times called a ​“float­ing bone.” Instead of being sup­port­ed by bones, it is held in place by car­ti­lage, mus­cles, and lig­a­ments (bands of tissue).

The hyoid sits at the front of your neck between your low­er jaw and the thy­roid car­ti­lage (the tis­sue that pro­tects your vocal cords). It helps you speak, swal­low, and breathe and sup­ports struc­tures like the tongue and throat.

True or False: You Can Pro­tect Your Bones With Lifestyle Changes.

Answer: True.

There are some fac­tors that affect bone health that you can’t con­trol, like genet­ics and race. But there are plen­ty of things you can do to pro­tect your bones, such as:

• Eat­ing foods rich in cal­ci­um and vit­a­min D
• Get­ting reg­u­lar phys­i­cal activity
• Lim­it­ing alcohol
• Quit­ting smoking

Tak­ing care of your bone health might not seem like your top pri­or­i­ty, but it’s impor­tant to stay healthy and safe as you get old­er – no bones about it! Ready to take your bone health into your own hands? Sched­ule an appoint­ment with a South Bend Clin­ic ortho­pe­dic spe­cial­ist today.