This engineering feat of both growing and strengthening our body’s support system is dependent on nutrition, calcium, exercise and our estrogen levels.Those children, adolescents and young women who both had, and did, everything right — good bone genes, proper nutrition, adequate calcium, exercise and appropriate estrogen levels — will reach a personal best that will allow them to withstand this later, inevitable bone loss. Bone Density Loss Is A Potential Side Effect Contraceptive methods such as the Depo-Provera shot, as well as some birth control pills, may lead to a decrease in bone density. Impact on bone density was dependent on the woman’s age, as well as the pill’s hormone dose. No. Reports on oral contraceptive use and actual bone mineral density have been conflicted. "Scholes and her fellow researchers studied 301 teenage women between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and 305 adult women between the ages of nineteen and thirty. But those who begin their 30s with a low bone density will be among the 40 percent of women whose fragile bones are destined to fracture.The National Osteoporosis Foundation suggests that we get the following amounts of calcium according to our age:Remember that when calcium supplements are given, no more than 500 or 600 milligrams can be absorbed at once, so if you’re not getting enough calcium through your food and you decide to supplement, don’t try to do it all in one dose. And all hormonal contraceptives including birth control pills, injections, implants and certain IUDs cause bone loss. The study was led by GHRI Senior Investigator Delia Scholes, PhD.According to Scholes, hormones are an important component of bone health, and hormonal contraceptives are a major source of external hormones for women; a woman's risk of fractures in her elder years is affected by the bone mass she gains in her teens through her twenties. This is particularly concerning given that 67% of women who practice contraception are using hormonal methods. This age group, stated Scholes, has the highest rate of using birth control pills as a form of contraceptive. Birth control pills have the potential to reduce a woman's bone density. Over the duration of the study, 172 birth control pill users stopped taking the pill, and the researchers measured the changes in their bone densities following the discontinuation of the medication.The researchers found that a teenage woman who used a pill with a dosage of 30-35 micrograms of estrogen for over two years exhibited roughly 1% less gain in bone density at both the spine and whole body sites than teenagers that did not use oral contraceptives.At twelve to twenty four months after ceasing use of oral contraceptives, teens who had taken 30-35 microgram pills still gained less bone density in the spine than female teenagers that did not use the pill.Comparatively, the researchers discovered that young adult women, both users and non-users of the pill, exhibited no differences in bone density.At twelve to twenty-four months after stopping, young adult women who had taken either commonly used pill dose exhibited small bone density losses at the spine in comparison to the small gains in women who did not take oral contraceptives.Dissimilarity observed in bone density between users and nonusers of the pill were less than 2%; they also were only observed following two or more years of oral contraceptive use.Scholes stated that further studies which include focusing on bone changes for a longer period of time following the discontinuation of the pill may yield more information concerning how oral contraceptive use is related to fracture risk.Until then, however, Scholes hopes that these results may help women make informed decisions.