This might be too obscure, but does anyone else remember Emily Mortimer’s guest starring arc in the first season of 30 Rock? She kept telling Alec Baldwin (Jack) and Tina Fey (Liz) that she had “bones like a bird, hallow.” It was a funny bit, just because Mortimer’s consistent line-delivery. This story about Gwyneth Paltrow reminded of that. According to the Daily Mail, Gwyneth is in the early stages of osteopenia, which is the precursor to osteoporosis. This is all based on Gwyneth’s GOOP newsletter from two weeks ago, where she claimed that doctors were astonished with how low her Vitamin D levels were. So basically, Gwyneth Paltrow has crash-dieted her way into being a little old lady with brittle bones.

With her extreme diets and harsh exercise regimes, Gwyneth Paltrow is nothing if not health conscious. So it must have come as a shock to be told she is suffering from an ailment more commonly the preserve of elderly women.

The 37-year-old actress says she is in the early stages of osteopenia, precursor to the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis. And according to experts, it could have been caused by the very diets she hoped would keep her in prime condition.

The problem was diagnosed in a bone scan after she suffered a leg fracture. In her internet newsletter Goop, she said: ‘My doctors tested my vitamin D levels, which turned out to be the lowest thing they had ever seen (not a good thing).’

As a result, Miss Paltrow, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Shakespeare In Love, says she has been put on ‘prescription-strength vitamin D’.

She was also told by doctors to spend ‘a bit of time in the sun’.

Osteoporosis is a bone disease which leads to an increased risk of fractures. It is more common in women, especially following the menopause, and can be caused by lack of calcium in the diet and too much exercise. All of which has led to speculation that the actress’s lifestyle might be in some way to blame.

Miss Paltrow lives in north London with her rock star husband Chris Martin, from the band Coldplay. In 1999, she began following a macrobiotic diet which concentrates on vegetables, grains, soup and fish.

She broke off from it between 2003 and 2006 when she had her two children Apple, now six, and four-year-old Moses. Since then, she has followed a less intense version but admits she does not consume many dairy products.

Nurse Julia Thomson, of the National Osteoporosis Society, said: ‘Diet certainly has a big role to play in bone strength. It’s all about maintaining the right ratio. Osteopenia may occur when one cuts out certain food groups such as dairy, especially if it is a lifelong habit. Calcium is certainly a biggie when it comes to osteoporosis. I don’t know that there is evidence to prove absolutely that cutting out the food group could cause the condition, but if the calcium intake is extremely low that will have an effect on the skeleton.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I had a mild Vitamin D deficiency when I was a teenager (back when I didn‘t eat anything good for me, and you know, was a dumb teenager), and my doctor just told me to change my diet. It is seriously one of the easiest things to remedy. Go out in the sun. Drink milk, eat fish or beef or eggs. And if all else fails, just take over-the-counter supplements. The fact that Gwyneth has or had health problems because of a vitamin deficiency doesn’t surprise me in the least – she’s always recommending diets and cleanses and juice and cabbage-water crap-tastic bullsh-t that doesn’t seem healthy in the long run. And the fact that she considers herself some kind of healthy person – who deigns to give others advice – is even more disturbing.

Header: Gwyneth on June 7, 2010. Credit: WENN.