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In this episode of Stronger Bones Lifestyle, I sit down with Dr. Angie Martinez, an advanced functional medicine doctor who helps women uncover the root causes of their osteoporosis. Dr. Martinez shares her unique approach to bone health, focusing on biochemical and metabolic balance instead of the conventional pill-for-the-disease model. If you’ve ever felt frustrated, dismissed, or bullied into taking medication without understanding why your bones are weakening, this episode is for you.
Why the Conventional Approach to Osteoporosis Fails
For decades, the standard medical approach to osteoporosis has been reactionary, not preventive. Doctors diagnose bone loss using the outdated DEXA scan and prescribe bisphosphonates—medications that may slow bone loss but don’t rebuild bone strength. Women are left feeling powerless and scared, with little guidance beyond medication.
Dr. Martinez explains why this approach falls short:
- It treats symptoms, not root causes. Doctors focus on low bone density but rarely ask why it’s happening.
- It ignores metabolic and immune function. Osteoporosis isn’t just a bone disease—it’s a sign of deeper system imbalances.
- It doesn’t empower women. Many patients feel pressured into taking medications instead of being given holistic solutions.
The Functional Medicine Model: Defend, Repair, Rebuild
Dr. Martinez takes a systems-based approach, understanding that bone health is about more than just calcium and medication. She breaks it down into two essential states your body operates in:
- Defend Mode – When your body is under chronic stress, inflammation, or metabolic dysfunction, it stays in a breakdown state, pulling minerals from your bones.
- Repair Mode – When your immune system and metabolism are balanced, your body starts naturally rebuilding bone, just as it repairs muscles and other tissues.
Her goal? Shift the body out of “Defend” and into “Repair.”
Why This Matters to You
If you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia, you deserve better than fear-based medicine. You deserve answers to why you’re losing bone and what you can do to stop it naturally.
This episode gives you the knowledge and tools to take control of your bone health with functional medicine insights that go beyond prescriptions.
Actionable Advice: How to Shift from Breakdown to Repair
Dr. Martinez provides simple but powerful steps to move your body from a state of bone loss into a state of bone-building:
Focus on Gut Health – 80% of your immune system lives in your gut, and poor digestion = poor nutrient absorption. Avoid inflammatory foods like processed foods, gluten, and dairy, and add gut-supporting fiber (chia, flax, resistant starches).
Balance Your Blood Sugar – Blood sugar spikes and insulin resistance contribute to bone breakdown. Monitor your levels and eat protein with every meal (aim for 100g+ daily for menopausal women).
Reduce Chronic Stress & Inflammation – Chronic stress increases cortisol, which signals your body to break down bone. Mindfulness, meditation, and quality sleep help shift your body into a repair state.
Move & Strength Train – Functional medicine is not anti-exercise! Weight-bearing exercise and strength training are essential to signal your bones to grow.
Check the Right Lab Markers – Instead of just a DEXA scan, functional medicine doctors look at:
- Vitamin D (Medicare often won’t even cover repeat testing!)
- Blood sugar & insulin levels
- Cholesterol (the right type, not just total cholesterol!)
- Inflammatory markers
Dr. Martinez started in conventional medicine, working within a system that only allowed 15-minute patient visits and a checklist approach to bone health. She quickly realized that giving women bisphosphonates wasn’t preventing fractures—it was only slightly slowing bone loss without addressing the real cause.
Frustrated, she left traditional medicine to dive into functional medicine, where she now helps women reverse osteoporosis naturally by correcting immune and metabolic imbalances.
Links & Resources
- Connect with Dr. Angie Martinez: drangiemartinez.com
- Healthy Guts, Healthy Bones Program: Healthy Gut, Healthy Bones
If you’ve ever felt pressured, dismissed, or bullied into osteoporosis medication without real answers—this episode is your wake-up call. You have the power to heal your bones, but you need the right information and support.
Podcast Subscribe Links - Reversing Osteoporosis
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Oxalates, also known as oxalic acid, are naturally occurring compounds found in many plants, vegetables, and fruits. They are part of a plant’s defense mechanism against predators and can be found in high concentrations in foods like spinach, rhubarb, beets, nuts, chocolate, tea, and certain beans.
Regarding bone health, oxalates can bind to minerals such as calcium in the gut, forming calcium oxalate. This compound is not easily absorbed by the body, meaning the calcium that could have been utilized for bone strengthening is instead excreted. This process can potentially lead to lower calcium availability for bone health, which can be particularly concerning for individuals at risk of osteoporosis or other bone-related issues.
However, for most women, dietary oxalates do not pose a significant threat to bone health, especially if their diet is balanced with enough calcium and they do not have a history of kidney stones.
Your gut is crucial for stronger bones for several reasons:
- Nutrient Absorption: The gut is where most nutrient absorption occurs. For bones to be healthy and strong, they need a variety of nutrients, particularly calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamin D. A healthy gut efficiently absorbs these essential nutrients from your diet and facilitates their transportation to the bones.
- Gut Microbiome and Bone Health: Research has shown that the gut microbiome (the community of bacteria living in your intestines) can influence bone density. Certain gut bacteria help in producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) like butyrate, which have been shown to promote bone health. SCFAs can enhance the absorption of minerals necessary for bone strength and play a role in reducing inflammation, which can negatively affect bone health.
- Hormone Regulation: The gut helps regulate hormones that are involved in bone metabolism, including insulin, thyroid hormones, and sex hormones like estrogen. For example, estrogen is vital for bone density, and gut health can influence estrogen levels through the enterohepatic circulation, where estrogens are processed in the liver and intestines.
- Reducing Inflammation: Chronic inflammation, which can stem from poor gut health, is linked to many conditions that compromise bone strength, such as osteoporosis. A healthy gut helps to reduce systemic inflammation, protecting bones from inflammatory damage.
- Immune System Modulation: The majority of the immune system is located in the gut. An imbalance in the immune system can lead to autoimmune conditions, some of which affect the bones. Maintaining gut health helps to ensure the immune system works correctly, protecting against autoimmune reactions that could impact bone health.
In essence, maintaining a healthy gut contributes significantly to stronger bones by ensuring the effective absorption of vital nutrients, regulating hormones, reducing inflammation, and supporting a healthy immune system. Therefore, a diet rich in bone-healthy nutrients, prebiotics, and probiotics, along with lifestyle factors that promote gut health, is key to maintaining strong bones.