Building Bone Density: Dr. Kessler's Approach, Drawn from His Books

Why bone density is one of Dr. Kessler's primary subjects

Bone density has been a focus of Dr. Kessler's work for more than two decades. With co-author Colleen Kapklein, he wrote The Bone Density Diet (Ballantine, 2000) and The Bone Density Program (Ballantine, 2001), and he authored the bone-metabolism chapter in the McGraw-Hill textbook Integrative Medicine: Principles for Practice (Kligler & Lee, 2004), used in physician training.

The framing he gives this work on his own website is simple: "Any doctor can look for and find disease," he writes — "what I would like to do with you is find health."

How big the problem is, in his books' own words

The Bone Density Program opens with a number meant to reorient readers: "At least twenty-five million Americans have osteoporosis and another thirty-four million have bone density low enough to be at increased risk of fractures."

Both books also push back on a common assumption: the publisher's review of The Bone Density Diet in Publishers Weekly notes that the book directly challenges the misconception that osteoporosis is a women-only disease, making clear that men can develop it too.

To help readers locate themselves on that map, the books include a self-assessment to evaluate personal risk — alongside guidance on how to read a DEXA scan and other clinical tests.

The dietary approach he and Kapklein lay out

The dietary recommendations in The Bone Density Diet, as summarized in the Publishers Weekly review of the book, include:

• Reducing saturated fat and red meat.
• Eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
• Limiting caffeine and carbonated beverages.
• Incorporating soy-based foods.
• Eating beans regularly.

An important framing throughout the books is that calcium alone is not the answer. The publisher's description of The Bone Density Program explicitly states that "taking calcium alone isn't the best tactic" — it has to be considered alongside the rest of nutrition, hormones, movement, and lifestyle.

What he recommends for movement

Where many bone-density programs reach first for heavy resistance training, Dr. Kessler's books prominently endorse yoga, tai chi, and qigong as preferred movement modalities, alongside weight-bearing activity. These appear in the chapter framing of both books and in the publisher's description of the program.

The Bone Density Program is built around a six-week structure that combines that movement work with the dietary changes above and a 21-day meal plan with recipes.

How this fits into his current practice

Today Dr. Kessler sees patients exclusively through a virtual practice on a secure, encrypted medical platform. The same orientation that runs through the bone-density books — "the essence of medical care must be to promote health, rather than solely to treat illness," as he puts it on his website — also defines how he works with patients on bone density today: a careful history, the right testing, and a personalized plan that treats nutrition, movement, hormones, and lifestyle as one system.

If you'd like to read further

Both books were written for the public, not for clinicians, and remain widely available through online booksellers and many libraries. The textbook chapter is part of Integrative Medicine: Principles for Practice (Kligler & Lee, McGraw-Hill, 2004) and is held in medical libraries.