Erinwarrior, you mentioned prepare for menopause. Draglist recommended a book to me called younger next year. What he didn't know is there is one for women, it has lots of info, I would suggest reading it. I checked it out from the library. I'm past that phase but it does address it in detail. For me eating lots of soy helped and some soy supplements. I was not happy with hrt therapy and my doc then was a jerk about it. Needless to say he wasn't my doc after that. There is also another book a bit older but lots of good info "beautiful bones without hormones". Wish I would have read both of these years ago. Mom had osteo and so do I.