The Truth about Calcium is Coming Out.
Everyone says you need calcium for strong bones, right? What if I told you, you could get stronger bones (and lower your risk for many diseases) by consuming less calcium?
Did you know that researchers from The Nurses’ Health Study (with Harvard’s participation and the largest investigation of its kind in history) followed 122,000 women for 13 years? Surprisingly, those who consumed more calcium had the most bone fractures!
MORE Calcium Leads To WEAKER Bones!
Calcium has also been linked to:
* An 86% jump in heart disease – (following 24,000 Germans who supplemented with calcium for 11 years).
* Nearly doubles fatal prostate cancer – (from a Harvard study and a follow up study of calcium intake of 2,000 mg a day).
* Doubled Sudden Death – (a group of 1,471 healthy women that took daily calcium supplementation had almost double the number of heart attacks, strokes and sudden death).
* Increased risk of kidney stones, obesity, brain cell death and other things have been reported.
We have been told that without calcium your heart would stop, your nerves would stop firing, and your bones would break even if you thought you were going to fall. As a result, calcium has been pumped into everything from milk substitutes (soy, rice, and almond), juices, tofu, breakfast cereals, other baked goods, and more.
Absorption is the Key!
Well, actually, we do need calcium for good health. We usually get enough calcium in the average American diet! It is just that our body isn’t very good at absorbing it.
Most people are already taking in enough calcium from what they eat – especially if they consume dairy products. However, you might be surprised to find out that the body absorbs only about 25% of the calcium eaten.
Even worse, the most common calcium additive is only absorbed at about a 10% rate! As a result of the poor absorption, many Americans are calcium-deficient!
Calcium absorption is more important
than just increasing your calcium intake!
It is not just how much calcium enters your digestive system, it is how much of it is absorbed into your body in a useable form. The good news is that absorption can be increased simply adding:
• Vitamin D-3
• Vitamin K
• Boron
(Vitamin K is considered such an important bone enhancer that Tufts University has its own Vitamin-K Lab.)
These supplements will help you absorb more of the calcium you take! In fact, these supplements can help you absorb and use as much as 4 times more of the calcium you are already eating.
This is why we need less calcium in the “Ultimate Foundation” than other multivitamins because you will absorb more of your calcium intake.
What Makes Bones Stronger?
Ok, we have enough calcium. Now, how can we make the bones stronger?
Most of us have seen babies accidentally fall and yet suffer no broken bones. Not to complain, but why can’t we, as adults, fall and not break bones?
The difference is that babies have a lot of magnesium in their bones. Magnesium adds flexibility to bones. As we age (and from our depleting soils), our bones end up with less and less magnesium in them – and become more and more brittle!
Add 100% Recommended Daily Value of Magnesium Using Our Ultimate Foundation.
Strontium is also very important (and harder to find). However, one study, in The New England Journal of Medicine, looked at more than 1,600 women with low bone mineral density. Those who took strontium cut their risk of new fractures by 49% in the first year. That’s nearly half! They also increased bone density in their backs by 14.4%. That is equivalent to reversing 10 or more years of bone loss! We recommend taking about 350 mg of Strontium daily.
Shop Amazon for Your Preferred Source of Strontium and Other Bone Health Products
The Vitacost brand strontium listed in our Amazon picks provides a 680 mg serving. You can take half this amount and still experience the benefit of adding strontium to your body.
Calm+ Calcium by Natural Vitality is by far the best bone specific product we’ve ever seen – one of the few with more magnesium than calcium. Plus, its a powder and comes in raspberry lemonade flavor or unflavored. Mix it up or add it to smoothies.
The Jarrow brand Bone-Up provides a more standard 2:1 Calcium:Magnesium formula.