We're used to thinking of our bones as providing structural support, as a storage and regulator of calcium, and as a producer of red blood cells.
You may not know, however, that bones communicate with and affect many other systems in the body!
Like regulating blood sugar and insulin. Affecting levels of testosterone. Even influencing memory and mood.
Turns out that bones produce a protein called osteocalcin. In several studies with mice, when osteocalcin was not produced, the mice were _“anxious, depressed, and almost completely unable to master a test of spatial memory,” according to researcher Gerard Karsenty, Dept Chair of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Medical Center. When the mice were *given the missing hormone, “their moods improved and their perfomance on the memory test became nearly normal.”*_ Read More
Aging often brings a decrease in bone mass and can mean increased problems with memory, anxiety and depression. Are these related? Karsenty has long believed that communication goes both ways: the brain talks to the skeleton, why not the other direction? Perhaps this is another of the ways exercise affects the brain, by building bone mass, although Karsenty hasn’t established that higher bone mass means more capacity for osteocalcin production.
Most studies so far are with mice, although every hormone that operates in mice seems to function, at least to some degree, in humans.
The situation of two men unable to respond to osteocalcin because of a genetic mutation seems to bear this out. They are both infertile and unable to regulate sugar properly, as the mice research predicts.
In the meantime, it’s yet another example of the marvelously intricate interconnections in our body-mind. Another reason to keep moving. And when we're moving with others, we get the feel-good social connections too! Come move with us--your bones and **your brain will thank you!
