Calcium

CALCIUM
Calcium is a major mineral constituent of teeth and bones. In addition to dairy products, green leafy vegetables such as collards, kale, and turnip greens, as well as beans, sea vegetables, seeds and nuts, and other plant quality foods are high in this mineral. Current medical research suggests that calcium from animal sources is processed differently in the body than that from plant sources. The relation between dietary calcium and the calcium in bones appears to be the result of many synergetic factors, so that simply taking in more calcium, especially from dairy products and calcium supplements, may not strengthen the skeletal structure and, in fact, may weaken it. See Dental Health, Kale, Osteoporosis, Protein, Vitamin D.

• Calcium Intake Unrelated to Bone Development - Calcium intake is not linked to strong bones, according to British researchers. . In a study of mothers in England and Gambia, scientists found that the Africans, who ate a diet low in calcium and had as many as ten babies and breast-fed each one, had comparable bone masses as English mothers who ate a high calcium diet and had had on average two children and breast-fed them little or not at all. The researchers found that the En-glish women on a high-calcium diet, from dairy foods, were more likely to get osteoporosis later in life than the Gambians. Calcium supplements proved useless in boosting the bone mass of women of childbearing age.
Source: T. J. Aspray et al., “Low Bone Mineral Content Is Common But Osteoporotic Fractures Are Rare in Elderly Rural Gambian Women,” Journal of Bone Mineral Research 11(7):1019-25, 1996.

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