Experts recommend brisk walking for a minimum of 45 minutes three times a week. Aerobic exercise or dancing will accomplish the same thing. Ideally arms as well as legs should be exercised to maintain strong bones.

Recent studies suggest that women who exercise, even if they start well after menopause, can still improve their bone mass.

One study showed that women in a nursing home (average age 80) who exercised their arms and legs for 30 minutes a day while sitting in their chairs, were able to increase their bone mass.

An Australian study compared three groups of menopausal women, and found that bone loss was slowed or prevented by exercise when combined with either calcium or hormones.

STRENGTH TRAINING: The most important factor affecting the quality of life as you age may be loss of lean body mass or muscle mass. Optimal health may depend on just the right combination of muscle, bone and fat in your body.

In the 80's or 90's there can be up to an 80 percent loss of muscle mass causing muscle weakness, fatigue, and inability to lift a grocery bag, or pot of water, with resultant loss of independence. A recent study showed that women in their 90's, after eight weeks of resistance training with weights, had an increase in muscle mass of ten to 15 percent, and a doubling or tripling of the muscle strength of their legs.

After a ten week strength training program in which you train five times a week, you can maintain your strength by exercising just four times a week.

With strength training, you break down your muscle tissue before you build it up. Research shows that anti-oxidants like vitamin-C, vitamin-E and betacarotene protect muscle from excessive breakdown and encourage muscle repair.

Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg, Senior Scientist, anti-oxidants Lab, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, in Boston, says that both vitamin-D and magnesium are critical players in the ability to gain muscle mass as you age. As women age, they are often lacking in both those nutrients.

Research is in progress to determine whether weight training may also increase bone mass as well.

DIET: Menopause is one of the few times in a woman's life where it is advantageous to be ten to 15 percent overweight because it has a protective effect against osteoporosis and other menopausal symptoms.

Getting enough calcium in your diet is important. But much more important is the total composition of your diet and how well calcium is absorbed into your body.

For example, a diet high in caffeine, sugar, soft drinks, alcohol, and dairy products can result in a calcium deficiency.

A long-term study of 85,000 nurses showed that women who drank the most coffee (four or more cups per day) had almost three times the incidence of hip fractures when compared to women who drank little or no coffee.

It is a myth to think you need to drink milk in order to get enough calcium in your diet.

Even if you don't eat any dairy products, you can still get enough calcium. Vegetarian dietary sources of calcium include deep green vegetables, tahini, dulse, kelp, lime processed tortillas, tofu made with calcium sulphate, and mashed sunflower and sesame seeds.

High protein diets can cause a negative calcium balance by increasing calcium loss through the urine. In fact, studies of ethnic groups have shown that the higher the average intake of protein, the higher the rate of osteoporosis.

For example, Eskimos consume a very high protein fish based diet and take in more that 2,000mg of calcium every day. They appear to have the highest rate of osteoporosis in the world.

In contrast, the Bantu tribes of central Africa have low protein, vegetable and grain diets and take in only 300mg of calcium a day. Osteoporosis is unknown among the Bantu, even in old age.

Japanese women who have a low protein diet with only 300mg of calcium a day, have a lower rate of osteoporosis than their American counterparts who take in an average of 800mg of calcium a day.