Optimize: Bone Density

Heavy loading is the builder. Heavy resistance and impact training raised postmenopausal spine bone density 2.9%. Bone responds to strain, so the lever is genuinely heavy lifting (not light circuits), progressed under guidance. This is the first thing to do, at any age with clearance.

Impact loading through jump/plyometric training raises hip bone density ~1.5%. High-strain, low-cost, and it targets the hip, a fracture site walking does not reach.

Weighted-vest jumping held older women's hip bone density over 5 years while controls lost bone. One caveat: a weighted vest worn passively (8 hours/day) during weight loss did not slow hip bone loss, so the bone stimulus is the jumping and loading, not the extra weight itself.

Deficiency-only. Correcting a real deficiency reverses rickets and osteomalacia, and ~800 IU/day cut hip fractures ~30% in older adults (largely deficient or institutionalized). But in 25,871 already-replete adults, 2000 IU/day produced no fewer fractures. Correct a genuine deficiency with calcium; do not expect benefit if you are replete.

Mixed and form-dependent: 180 mcg/day MK-7 slowed bone loss over 3 years, and 45 mg/day MK-4 (a pharmacological dose, a prescription drug in Japan) cut fractures mostly in Japanese osteoporosis trials, while 5 mg/day vitamin K1 did not protect bone density (ECKO). A reasonable adjunct, not a foundation.

A clinical fracture-healing tool, not a density builder: FDA-cleared to help nonunion fractures knit and associated with ~2.5x the odds of successful spinal fusion. The direct-density evidence is thin (only four small trials, 125 patients). Situational for stalled healing, not general bone-building.

One 12-month trial: 5 g/day of specific collagen peptides raised spine and hip bone density in postmenopausal women. Single manufacturer-supported study, unreplicated. Emerging.

As a bone lever it is unproven: creatine plus training moved some bone-turnover markers, but direct bone-density trials have been largely null. Worth it for muscle; do not sell it as a bone builder yet. Its value here is only as an adjunct to the resistance training that does build bone.