Released the day before World Osteoporosis Day, this episode welcomes back Dr. Jenny Han, PharmD, a board-certified ambulatory care pharmacist and co-founder of SEEN Nutrition, a woman-owned company in Ithaca, New York, that makes a calcium chew from real food ingredients: milk minerals, organic dates, almonds, and vitamin D from mushrooms. Jenny's path into this work began with a diagnosis most of us would never expect, pregnancy and lactation-associated osteoporosis, discovered when she fractured her back two months postpartum during the early days of COVID.
Roughly one in two women over 50 in the United States will break a bone because of osteoporosis, and many of us don't think about our bones until one breaks. Jenny and I talk about what women in their 40s and 50s can do now, before the rapid bone loss that follows menopause, along with what has changed at SEEN since her first visit to the show and what it looks like to use a PharmD in a way most pharmacists never consider.
In this episode, we talk about:
Why synthetic calcium supplements are so bulky, and how a food-based calcium chew delivers 500 mg of dietary calcium (about a glass and a half of milk, without the lactose)
What vitamin K2 (MK-7) does for bone health, and why eating chickpeas won't give you the K2 that SEEN sources from fermented chickpeas
Why SEEN chose a nutrition facts label over a supplement facts panel, and what that extra regulatory oversight means for trust
Winning $500,000 in the Grow New York Food and Agriculture startup competition, and growing from two founders to a team of five
Why Duke orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jocelyn Wittstein joined SEEN's scientific advisory board, and her work on the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause
Adolescence as the most important window for building bone, peak bone mass around age 30, and the accelerated loss in the years after menopause
The difference between a DEXA body composition scan and a DEXA bone density scan (only one of them diagnoses osteopenia or osteoporosis)
Why getting a baseline bone density scan before 65 may be worth the out-of-pocket cost, and the advocacy work to lower the screening age to 50
Treating osteoporosis like any other chronic condition: nutrition, calcium and vitamin D, protein, resistance training, and medication when appropriate
Why "I reversed my osteoporosis" claims on social media leave out the most important part
Moving from patient care into entrepreneurship, and Jenny's advice to pharmacy students who want a path outside retail or hospital practice
The growing role of pharmacists in menopause care, from hormone therapy titration to managing estrogen patch shortages
A note from Jenny for women listening
Bones are living, dynamic tissue, and your skeleton renews itself roughly every decade. A diagnosis of osteopenia or osteoporosis can feel final, but the choices you make consistently, day after day, still shape your bone health, even when you can't feel the difference in a month or two.
World Osteoporosis Day (October 20)
To mark the month leading up to World Osteoporosis Day, SEEN Nutrition launched its Generations of Strength campaign and donated $10,000 to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation and the National Spine Health Foundation. Listeners can use code SEENSTRONG at checkout for an extra 10% off a first purchase.
Connect with Jenny and SEEN Nutrition
Website: www.seennutrition.com
Social media: The Calcium Queens
Jenny's first episode on the show: 72. Bone Health, Calcium, and Clean Supplements” Pharmacist Jennifer Han on Creating SEEN Nutrition for Women’s Wellness
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