Tag Archives: calcium

My cousin recently reported about her visit to a modern medical doctor, she was told to start taking more calcium. When I asked how the consulting doctor knew this, she said it was a general guideline for women in their thirties.
There is constant drumbeat in our media; if we don’t get more calcium, our bones will collapse like a house of cards. So all kinds of calcium supplements get pushed upon us, from additives in cereals to Tums. There are so many things wrong with this scenario. I will start with one.
Balanced Minerals- As intended by nature, calcium never shows up alone in any living food source, i.e. plant or animal. Moreover, bones are like structural concrete; a complex combination of materials that need to be proportionately combined to achieve full strength. Simplistically increasing only one thing, calcium, creates an imbalance that can backfire most cruelly.
A recent study on expectant/ lactating mothers found that supplementing only calcium over a 12 month period actually led to significant bone loss, as compared to the placebo group with out any calcium added. (Jarjou LMA et al. “Effect of calcium supplementation in pregnancy on maternal bone outcomes in women with a low calcium intake.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2010:92 450-457) This study, cited by Dr. Alan R. Gaby in the Townsend Letter for Doctors, July 2011:37-38. He goes on to comment that only increasing calcium, “interferes with the absorption of magnesium, manganese, zinc, phosphorus, and silicon, each of which plays a role in maintaining bone health”. Again it’s like trying to make concrete by only supplying sand, without the right proportions of cement, water, pebbles, etc. you don’t get structural integrity. Worse yet, the body will actually pull apart bone mass to restore the deficient minerals to the bloodstream. That’s because bone is used as storage of these minerals for times of need; even if it is artificially induced by short sighted nutritional advice.
So when I saw my cousin at my chiropractic practice, I recommended a balanced mineral supplement.
Best foods are goat milk products (more similar to human milk than cow milk). Also, consider leafy greens, after all, where did the cows and goats get the minerals for their milk? One of my favorite mineral sources are the seaweeds, additionally rich in chromium, a mineral now lacking in the soil.