Calcium 101 (Health Short)

                                                          
This video helps to give a quick review of what calcium is and why it is so important for both bone and muscle health. Check it out and see for yourself :)

Calcium good for bones and heart?

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This article discusses a study done by “The British Medical Journal” that dealt with effects of taking calcium supplements on the heart.  They found that the people taking the calcium supplements had a 30 percent increase in heart attack compared to those who did not take the supplement. These results were not dependent of the sex or age of the individuals. I thought this article was important because growing up I was taught that taking supplements of calcium can only help your body. However, this research states that the calcium supplements might help your bones but can also increase your risk of heart attack.

This article also mentions a study conducted in 2008 that took 1,471 postmenopausal women and had them take a total of 1,000 mg of calcium a day in multiple doses. This study contradicted most other studies that stated that the reason why calcium supplement were so beneficial for our heart was because it helped with lowering the bad cholesterol or LDL and raising good cholesterol or HDL. However, through the help of a CT scan researchers in this study can conclude that higher doses of calcium supplements implies more disease of the arteries. The problem with the calcium supplements is that they cause an acute increase in the blood calcium levels much more rapidly than from food. This rapid increase in blood calcium levels is believed to be the cause of the artery damages.

Therefore, this article really pushes eating calcium rich foods versus calcium supplements. In the article is said and I quote, “your food is your medicine”.  I choose this article because it supports the idea that we should retain most of our daily calcium needs from food, which I myself am a strong believer of. This article also provides a list of recommended foods that have contain higher levels of calcium. The list ranges from dark-green leafy vegetables to nuts and seeds. Also I appreciated this article because it advocated consuming less animal foods and less salty foods.

As a vegan, I loved this article because it shows that you don’t have to eat tons of meat or dairy products to meet our daily recommendation of calcium, and further be healthy. This is supported in the article when it stated a study conducted in 1990 by Yale that looked at fracture rates in 16 countries around the world. They found that people in countries with the lowest intake of meat, eggs, fish and dairy products also had the lowest fracture risk. The main message I want you take from this article is that vegetables are essential and so beneficial to our bodies. So I am asking you to please try to retain the recommended calcium intake of 1000mg a day naturally, with REAL FOOD!

Maintaing Healthy bones

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In this article it laid out the purpose of calcium in the body and the ways in which one could go about getting the recommend amount of daily calcium. I will give a brief highlight on the Key concepts in this article.

The bone is always changing with the helps of the osteocytes or bone cells that are embedded within the connective tissue of a bone. Osteoclast and Osteoblast play a major role in the constant changes that the bone will experience. An osteoclasts function is to breakdown Osteocytes (bone cells). While the osteoblasts function is to make or form new bone. One important factor that is key in the promotion of healthy bone is that the bone maintains a relatively stable activity levels between the Osteoclasts and the Osteoblasts. For example if the Osteoclast is more metabolic active than the Osteoblast that could result in a much weaker bone that is more susceptible to injury from external or internal stress.

The article also focused on the peak bone mass (PBM). It stated that the average PBM is reached at ages 30 to 35. The article recommended that early in life one needs to focus on their bone strength and after reaching PBM they need to focus on maintaining that bone strength. However, throughout ones life you must always focus on maintaining a healthy and nutritious diet. Also the article stated that 20% of our PBM can be influence by our diet and lifestyle choices.

Overall I really enjoyed this article because it gave a list of non-dairy food that contained adequate levels of calcium. Some non-dairy foods that contai9ned calcium were, dried apricots, kale, and soya beans.