Coral Calcium: Hype or Highly Effective Supplement?

Calcium Facts and Fiction

Calcium makes up 1 to 2 percent of adult human body weight. More than 99 percent of the body’s entire calcium content is found in the teeth and bones. Critical for bone development and maintenance, calcium also is necessary for muscle contraction, blood clotting, nerve signal function and regulation of the heart rhythm.

Supplemental forms include bone meal, dolomite, refined calcium carbonate, unrefined calcium carbonate (from limestone or oyster shells) and calcium chelates (aspartate, citrate, gluconate and lactate).

Calcium (carbonate), taken with a meal, sometimes prevents gallbladder problems, such as nausea, gas and abdominal pressure, from symptom-prone foods (usually fatty food). Calcium also has been shown to bind secondary bile acids in the colon, allowing acids to be excreted rather than being reabsorbed, which leads to faster gallstone formation.

Countries (such as Peru, Sri Lanka and China) that have the lowest calcium levels in the diet have populations that maintain lifelong healthy bones, while Americans tend to have brittle bones. Western populations have overburdened themselves with an excessive acid load (from stress and from eating too many refined carbohydrates and too much protein), throwing pH out of balance, which leads to chronic, low-grade acidosis.

Build Bone Health

Chronic metabolic acidosis is the major hidden cause of osteoporosis. Even a slight tilt toward acid can produce osteoporosis. The body then has to take valuable alkaline salts of bone-building minerals (calcium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, potassium, zinc, boron, copper and strontium) from bone tissue and use them for buffering those internal acids. The human skeleton, in addition to holding us up, is the storehouse for these minerals, which are withdrawn to fit the need.

Eating sugar also may deplete our bodies of calcium. Numerous studies, including one published in The Journal of Nutrition in 1986, have shown that a high-sugar diet causes urinary calcium to increase. A 1994 French study showed that a single chocolate bar, containing 55 grams of sucrose, produced a striking increase in blood triglycerides and urine calcium.

Two National Institutes of Heath “Consensus Development Conference” reports, the “2004 Surgeon General’s Report on Osteoporosis” and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005” each state that calcium consumption should be between 1,000 and 1,500 mg a day for all adults. However, median calcium intakes are less than 800 mg per day for most adults and below 600 mg a day for older women. The Surgeon General’s report states unambiguously: “Calcium has been singled out as a major public health concern today because it is critically important to bone health, and the average American consumes levels of calcium that are far below the amount recommended for optimal bone health.”