Fitness

It is not enough to see that calcium is adequately supplied; it must pass through the intestinal wall into the blood before it can be of value. Calcium must first be dissolved by hydrochloric acid in the stomach. If this acid is absent, as it usually is when persons have the tongue symptoms described on page 63, calcium cannot be absorbed, though the supply be generous. Even when the stomach acid is normal, the added citric acid supplied by a glass of orange juice or lemonade has been found to increase calcium absorption markedly. Lactose, the sugar obtained by drinking milk, causes a pronounced increase in calcium absorption because it is broken down by intestinal bacteria into lactic acid. If the diet is excessively high in phosphorus, calcium and phosphorus combine in the intestine to make insoluble salts which do not dissolve even in acid. The taking of soda or any alkaline substance, which neutralizes the food and stomach acids, or the eating of candy or other concentrated carbohydrate, which stimulates the flow of alkaline digestive juices, decreases or prevents calcium absorption.

After calcium is once soluble, it must next combine with fat, making a soap which dissolves as readily in water as ordinary soap dissolves in a bathtub; in this form, the calcium passes across the intestinal wall into the blood. If so much fat is eaten that it cannot be absorbed, soap is formed, and both the fat and calcium are lost in the feces; this soap becomes hard, often causing constipation as well as robbing the body of valuable calcium. The stools of persons attempting to gain weight by drinking rich milk and eating quantities of fat often look like shiny soap; instead of gaining, such people usually become thinner because the loss of calcium results in greater nervousness and over activity.

Conversely, almost any person who stays on a fat-free diet absorbs little or no calcium from his food. For example, leg cramps and other calcium-deficiency symptoms suffered by women during pregnancy or menopause can sometimes be relieved more quickly by fat than by extra calcium. More calcium is absorbed from yogurt and buttermilk, which supply both fat and lactic acid, than from sweet whole milk. If you wish to use skim milk, drink it at a meal when you have a salad tossed with oil. Using fresh or powdered skim milk without fat being obtained simultaneously may be actually dangerous; besides calcium being lost, the need for vitamin B2 is increased.

After calcium has reached the blood, the next task is to prevent it from being lost from the body. If cholin and/or linoleic acid are undersupplied, if the protein intake is inadequate, or if thyroid, benzedrene, or certain other drugs are used, large quantities of calcium may be lost in the urine. Even a slight increase in protein intake can markedly increase calcium retention. The most important factor, however, is the quantity of phosphorus in the diet in relation to the amount of calcium. Ideally, no more than twice as much phosphorus as calcium should be obtained; yet persons often ingest 10 times more phosphorus than calcium. Aside from such urinary losses, calcium and phosphorus which might be thought of as worn out are lost daily in the feces.

Phosphorus is necessary to the life processes of every cell not only in all animals but in all plants. The American diet, poor in calcium, is therefore rich in phosphorus. In the maintenance of bones and teeth, calcium is used in chemical combination with phosphorus. If calcium is undersupplied in proportion to phosphorus, there is nothing for phosphorus to combine with. In this case, phosphorus is excreted in the urine. There is, however, always calcium in the blood. Unfortunately, urinary phosphorus is excreted in the form of calcium-phosphorus salts, and the body is robbed not only of its limited calcium supply but of phosphorus which may also be greatly needed. For these reasons, calcium gluconate and calcium lactate are preferable to calcium salts containing phosphorus.

Liver, yeast, and wheat germ are unusually rich in phosphorus and yet poor in calcium; if large quantities of these foods are consumed, calcium lactate or calcium gluconate should be obtained simultaneously. When such a precaution is not taken, the proportion of phosphorus to calcium may become so high that the excretion of the excess phosphorus in the urine can induce a severe calcium deficiency. Sometimes a person who uses little or no milk becomes enthusiastic about obtaining large amounts of the B vitamins; his high intake of phosphorus and lack of calcium can cause him to become a nervous wreck. Phosphorus, calcium, and vitamin D are interdependent. When liberal quantities of milk, cultured buttermilk, yogurt, and foods prepared with fresh and powdered milk are used, calcium is supplied, and no problem arises unless large amounts of liver, yeast, and/or wheat germ are eaten temporarily; in this case, a calcium salt can both prevent harm and be of great value.

Excess calcium which is absorbed and retained is stored in the shafts at the ends of the long bones as a lacy network of bony structure known as trabeculae, absent when no excess minerals have been available. You probably have noticed this lacy structure when a soup bone has been cut lengthwise. Calcium thus stored can be used at times of dietary insult; thus health can be protected. When no minerals are stored, calcium and phosphorus, aided by a hormone from the parathyroid glands, are removed from the bones to supply the needs of the soft tissues. The amount of calcium in the blood therefore remains at a normal level even when bones become progressively more porous and fragile, teeth become susceptible to decay or erosion, and multiple symptoms of calcium deficiency become evident. When deficiency symptoms are persistent, the bones are probably in a precarious condition.

Instead of bones being lifeless structures, unchanging after the cessation of growth, a continuous tidal flow of minerals passes in and out of them every hour of life. If sufficient calcium is obtained and absorbed, the tide flows into the bones, building and repairing until all porosity is gone and dense mineralization is formed; any excess is then stored in the trabeculae. When too little calcium is obtained, the tide Haws first from any calcified trabeculae; if no minerals have been stored, calcium and phosphorus are removed from the bones to supply the calcium needs of the soft tissues.

The calcium content of milk varies with the feed of the cow and season of the year; a quart of milk may contain 800 to 1500 milligrams. Powdered milk, made from summer milk when the supply is generous and green food is usually available, contains more calcium than does average winter milk. Powdered milk should be used liberally in cooking, always in recipes containing fat. If optimum health is to be obtained, adults should have daily at least one gram of calcium, the amount obtained from four glasses of average milk, yogurt, or cultured buttermilk. Still larger amounts may be advantageous. In times of prosperity, the daily calcium intake of the Finns and Swiss averaged six grams; many primitive races obtain even larger amounts of calcium. If a small excess is allowed for daily storage, large amounts of calcium would never be needed nor would calcium deficiencies ever exist.

Your own disposition can probably tell you the adequacy or inadequacy of your calcium intake, absorption, and retention. If it is good, no one can enjoy it more than yourself.

Another reason for an adequate calcium intake and for keeping calcium tablets in the medicine chest at all times is that this mineral is a pain killer par excellence. Old medical textbooks give as the treatment for the sharp stabbing pains of pleurisy-than which there are few worse-injections of calcium. Why calcium has not been used more widely in alleviating other pain remains a mystery. One physician tells me that he uses no opiates but injects one to four grams of calcium gluconate into the veins of patients suffering even excruciating pain and that relief occurs almost immediately. Although the severely ill person or one enduring a blinding headache usually cannot absorb enough calcium taken by mouth to relieve pain, a less ill person can. The migraine sufferer, for example, can be helped most by taking calcium between headaches. For years I have told people to take calcium tablets before visiting a dentist; the mineral not only helps them relax and feel less pain but makes life easier for the dentist. It has been my experience that adequate calcium usually relieves the itching of hives in a half-hour and the pain of arthritis within one to three days. Since the publication of my book on baby feeding, I have been amazed at the number of young mothers who have written or told me personally that they had experienced no pain during delivery. Invariably they have written or said, “I thought I was having gas pains when the baby was born.” Now I tell women to grab a vitamin-D capsule as soon as labor starts and to take two or three calcium tablets every hour until they are wheeled into the delivery room. Regardless of the cause of pain, calcium can usually do something to relieve it; if no relief comes, blame it on poor absorption.

A further reason for obtaining adequate calcium is that it is necessary for the clotting of blood. This need for calcium in blood clotting can be a matter of life or death after an accident. A year ago I interviewed a woman in her forties, a milk-hater whose calcium intake was almost nil; she had suffered from nosebleed most of her life. At the time I saw her, the hemorrhages were so severe that she was paperwhite and exhausted; she was being given blood transfusions every few days. Her hemoglobin had been 45 per cent the previous day prior to a transfusion and 58 per cent afterward. Vitamin K, another nutrient essential for clotting, had not decreased the clotting time. I planned a diet containing liver daily and a quart of tiger’s milk to which were added powdered bone and dilute hydrochloric acid. I suggested that she take 25,000 units of vitamin D daily for three days and during this period three calcium tablets every two hours, sipping tiger’s milk with them. A letter written 10 days later gives the following report: 1 “Had a hemo taken yesterday and it was 79. Pretty good, huh? A queer thing. I told you about the hot flashes and my nose would start practically every time I had a hard one. Well, I haven’t had one hot flash since I saw you. The second day was blistering hot. My nose bled a very little bit. None at all since. Gosh, sure is wonderful not to be afraid to breathe for fear of a nosebleed.”

The 1 per cent of calcium in the soft tissues has still other functions. According to Dr. Cantarow a lack of calcium allows cataracts to form, “probably due to the effect of diminished calcium concentration upon colloid aggregation.” 2 Cataracts are undeniably common during the advanced years when calcium deficiencies are legion. Calcium appears to be necessary before vitamin C can function effectively. Physicians have often been afraid to give adequate calcium to persons suffering from arthritis, thinking that still more minerals might be deposited in the joints; the lack of calcium necessary to help vitamin C in forming normal cartilage around the joints appears to be a major cause of the disease. Calcium decreases cell-wall permeability and thus prevents harmful substances from entering the cells. This mineral is also essential in maintaining normal muscle tone, or excellent posture, and strong muscular contraction; it is for this reason so valuable during labor at childbirth. Calcium has been found also to delay fatigue and to hasten recovery.

A lack of calcium causes susceptibility to decay of teeth and demineralization of bones which cannot be overcome with any amount of vitamin D alone. Both calcium and vitamin D must be abundantly supplied, absorbed, and retained if dental and skeletal health is to be maintained. Although phosphorus is combined with calcium in bones and teeth and is possibly more important than any other mineral in the body.

Many authorities believe that the deficiency of calcium is more widespread than that of any other nutrient; milk is the only dependable source in the American diet. There is, of course, calcium in sour milk, cultured buttermilk, yogurt, and any food prepared with milk. The calcium is lost in the making of cheese. Churned buttermilk contains little calcium because cream is a poor source.

A certain amount of calcium can be obtained from mustard and turnip greens, soybeans and blackstrap molasses, but these foods are rarely eaten daily. The quantity needed to meet an adult’s calcium requirements per day from the following foods, listed in medical textbooks as good sources of calcium, would be 72 apples, 80 bananas, 42 oranges, 11 cups of carrots, 33 eggs, 77 potatoes, Or 214 dates; the quantities of other foods listed are even more ridiculous. Certainly there are healthy peoples who do not drink milk, but each has a source of calcium; the Hawaiians’ source is poi; the Orientals’, soybean curds. The Eskimos, the African natives and formerly the American Indians obtained calcium from bones of fish, small game, and birds. Dr. Michael Walsh found that Mexican Indians, “starving” by our standards, had a calcium intake equivalent to eight quarts of milk daily; this calcium was obtained from the soft limestone used in grinding corn for tortillas. In America the calcium needs of a person who does not drink milk are not met unless he takes a calcium salt, a poor substitute indeed for milk.

Many calcium salts are available. Calcium gluconate and calcium lactate, or calcium combined with the sugars glucose and lactose, usually absorb more readily than does dicalcium phosphate or calcium chloride. Bone meal, or ground bone, is often poorly absorbed. Fine bone powder, however, is quickly dissolved by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach and hence is absorbed readily. Cereals, homemade breads, and many other foods can be advantageously fortified with powdered bone.

Although calcium salts are not harmful, only a limited quantity can be absorbed even under ideal conditions. Taking larger quantities is somewhat like dropping beads through the hole in a spool of thread; the spool is not harmed, but the procedure borders on stupidity if expensive beads are lost. Physicians sometimes fear that taking calcium salts may cause kidney stones. The formation of such stones, however, appears to result from a combination of innumerable physiological abnormalities including too alkaline urine, possibly the lack of vitamin A, and a number of combined factors such as an undersupply of unsaturated fatty acids and/or protein or excessive phosphorus which allow minerals to be lost in the urine.

No person aware of the rewards of adequate calcium would allow himself to be even slightly deficient in this nutrient. Calcium can be as soothing as a mother, as relaxing as a sedative, and as life saving as an oxygen tent.

Although 99 per cent of the calcium in the body is in the bones and teeth, symptoms resulting from an undersupply to the nerves and soft tissues can make life quite unbearable. For example, calcium aids in the transportation of nerve impulses. When this mineral is undersupplied, nerves become tense, and you become grouchy. The calcium-dencient person wastes energy, and his nervous tension and inability to relax induce fatigue out of all proportion to the work he actually does. He is usually so restless that it is tiring to be around him. His irritability and quick temper add nothing to his popularity. A mother whose seventeen-year-old son had an overdose of these symptoms, relieved by adequate calcium, said to me not long ago, “Thank you for making Johnny into a human being again.” If the blood calcium becomes unusually high, as it does when toxic doses of vitamin D are given experimentally, relaxation reaches the point of lethargy or sometimes coma; even the excitability of nerves and muscles to electrical stimulus is greatly reduced.

Often the person undersupplied with calcium becomes an air swallower. Since such a person usually talks rapidly, the air may be forced from the throat into the stomach during conversation, a trick nervous women are particularly good at. Either sex may unconsciously form the habit of vigorously swallowing saliva and air simultaneously. Frequently a man gulps his food and, like a ravenous baby, swallows air as he eats; since no one burps him, he often suffers from «indigestion.” The volatile oils from such foods as onions, green peppers, and garlic already in his stomach pass into the air bubbles, are tasted whenever he belches, and are blamed for the “indigestion.” In time his can’t-eat list usually becomes impressive. Often he is an enthusiastic user of soda or alkalinizing preparations. Besides forming enough carbon dioxide to force open the upper valve of the stomach and thus allowing gas and air alike to escape, these substances neutralize the valuable hydrochloric acid in his stomach; any calcium his food may have contained is made insoluble and cannot be absorbed into the blood. The swallowed air sometimes passes into the intestines, expands as it heats to body temperature, and may cause considerable distention and even pain. He becomes, in short, his own worst enemy. His symptoms, however, are quickly relieved provided adequate calcium reaches the nerves.

A calcium deficiency often shows itself by insomnia, another form of an inability to relax. The harm done by sleeping tablets, to say nothing of the thousands of dollars spent annually on them, could largely be avoided if the calcium intake were adequate. Since milk is our richest source of calcium, warm milk drinks taken before retiring have long been advertised for relief of insomnia; heat quickens digestion, calcium soothes the nerves, and restful sleep may follow. Such advertising has the blessing of both the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration. For the person whose tissues are starved for calcium, however, the amount in a milk drink is a mere drop in a bucket. I usually tell persons whose insomnia is severe to take temporarily two or three calcium tablets with a milk drink before retiring and to keep both milk and the tablets on a bedside table and take more every hour if wakefulness persists. Twenty years ago I discussed this subject with a physician who himself suffered from insomnia; he still calls calcium tablets “lullaby pills” and tells me he continues to recommend them for patients annoyed by wakefulness.

An undersupply of calcium also causes irritability of the muscles which may take the form of cramps or spasms. If the blood calcium drops extremely low, convulsions known as tetany can occur; fortunately the usual muscle symptoms are less severe. Leg or foot cramps are the most common, although either cramps or spasms may occur in almost any muscle. For example, spasms in the intestine, spoken of as spastic colitis or spastic constipation, are usually relieved by adequate calcium. The amount of calcium in a woman’s blood parallels the activity of the ovaries; the blood calcium falls to such an extent during the week prior to menstruation that nervous tension, irritability, and perhaps mental depression result. At the onset of menstruation, the blood calcium takes a further drop, often resulting in cramps of the muscular walls of the uterus. This condition is especially severe during adolescence, when the demands of growth exaggerate the need for calcium. Menstrual cramps usually disappear within % hour after calcium is taken. During the year before menstruation begins (ref. 2, P: 152) and again during the menopause, the lack of ovarian hormones causes severe calcium-deficiency symptoms to occur; at these times unusually large amounts of calcium should be obtained, and every step be taken to insure its absorption into the blood and to prevent its loss from the kidneys. When these steps are taken, the girl at puberty often becomes more pleasant and manageable, and the woman at menopause usually loses her irritability, hot flashes, night sweats, leg cramps, and mental depression. Even after the cessation of menstruation, a pseudo-menstrual cycle can usually be observed, and calcium-deflciency symptoms can be particularly noticed during one week of each month. The calcium intake should be increased at such times.