Why is exercise important to osteoporosis prevention?

Why is exercise important to osteoporosis prevention?

Frederick Singer (Director of the Endocrine/Bone Disease Program, John Wayne Cancer Institute ) gives expert video advice on: How can I prevent osteoporosis?; Can vitamins help prevent osteoporosis? and more...

Exercise, per se, is not a major way of increasing bone. It does to some extent in growing children. But exercise, which in a sense is the avoidance of lying in bed, is very important because bed rest or immobilization in bed is very dangerous for the skeleton. There's a considerable loss of bone if one stays in bed, which can lead to osteoporosis. Now generally people don't choose to stay in bed. But the point is that simply walking every day is adequate exercise to prevent osteoporosis because you're not lying in bed all day.