Adequate calcium?

Spiegelchan

So, after tracking every day this week, I've found I never meet the calcium DV. I know it's a small sample size, but this week has been pretty consistent with my overall eating habits, so I think it's a consistent problem.

I wanted to ask you guys: 1.) how important is calcium, really? And 2.) are calcium supplements as effective as getting calcium from food? Also, after googling it I have to ask, 3.) are they even safe? There's so much varying information on calcium - a deficiency causes osteoporosis and arthritis; it's a dairy farm conspiracy; animal protein leeches calcium from your bones and vegetarians don't need to worry about it; calcium supplements cause heart attacks; etc. I'm so confused; what is going on??

And finally, since calcium is usually linked with vitamin D I thought I'd mention that I'm pretty seriously vitamin D deficient. I've tried spending at least a few minutes in the sun every day, but I haven't gotten new bloodwork yet to see if it's helping. I don't know if that will change you guys' answer on the necessity, safety, and efficiency of calcium supplements.

cwolfman13

Calcium is quite important and if you aren't getting enough in your diet, it is leeched from your bones which is why osteoporosis is an issue with calcium deficiency.

The notion the animal protein causes calcium leeching from bone isn't quite that black and white and in most cases, articles and blogs promoting this one side of the equation notion have an agenda...often a vegan one. It is true that an increase in animal protein results in more calcium being excreted in urine and way back when (like early 20th century) the logical conclusion was that calcium was being leeched from bone and that people were effectively eroding their skeletons by eating meat.

More recent studies have established that this is only one side of the equation, however. Eating animal protein increases the absorption of calcium to the point where it is in excess and thus a lot of calcium is excreted in the urine...basically, the increased absorption makes up for what is lost so the net effect is essentially nil.

Vitamin D itself is only linked with calcium in that dairy products are often fortified with vitamin D and dairy products tend to be the best sources of calcium...for example, 100 grams of fresh mozzarella gives you 95% of the DV of calcium...an ounce would give you about 27%...an 8 ounce glass of milk will give you around 45%, etc...

Getting more sun may or may not help with vitamin D deficiency...I'm vitamin D deficient despite spending quite a bit of time in the sun...I'm an avid cycling enthusiast so I'm out there quite a bit. I still have to supplement with 5,000 IU...but that should be something you discuss with your doctor.