Calcium Conundrum

Allison J. Cleary

Fresh advice about a misunderstood mineral

She is 54 years old, she is one of the world’s top experts on calcium, and she rarely takes a calcium supplement. “I don’t have to,” says Connie Weaver. “I drink plenty of milk.”

While her three boys were growing up, the world-renowned researcher had one unwavering mealtime rule: milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Call her the dairy queen, but the old-fashioned dictum was a direct result of evolving research on a mineral that is clouded by confusion and misinformation.

Weaver has masterminded studies that helped to form the most compelling advice yet for calcium intake in the world and in this country, where osteoporosis afflicts 25 million people. Much of her research at Indiana’s Purdue University has focused on children during their peak bone-growing years, between the ages of 12 and 15. The results, however, have implications for men and women of all ages. As the number of bone fractures escalates across the globe, Weaver has found herself invited to advise nations like Malaysia and Thailand, countries that only a few decades past dismissed osteoporosis as a Western disease.

“About 60 percent of bone strength is determined by genetics,” Weaver says. “You can’t do anything about choosing your parents, but you can make a huge amount of difference in the other 40 percent with diet and exercise. My kids were such daredevils, they were constantly crashing and burning. I think their good bones saved them lots of problems.”

Q: Is there a role for calcium in the body beyond bone strength?

If you don’t maintain calcium in your body, you’ll die. Calcium is needed in every life process: it’s needed for your nerves to act, your muscles to contract, your brain to function, for practically every activity in the body. Ninety-nine percent of the body’s calcium is in the skeleton, and only 1 percent, concentrated in your blood, is used for all of those vital functions I just mentioned.

Although it’s a small amount, the calcium in your blood must be maintained. So either you keep the blood replenished from your diet, or your body will take it from the big bank it has, the bones, because they are a lower priority.

Q: How many of us get enough calcium?

Over the age of about 11, people on average get only half of the calcium they need.

Q: How does that calcium deficit affect most people?

A deficiency in calcium doesn’t play out with an immediate consequence: you don’t get a canker sore, you don’t have a collapse right away. It plays out in later years, and often in the form of weakened bones. Look at the statistics: hip fractures occur in one out of every four Caucasian women over 50 and in one out of ten African-American women (who are the most protected genetically for having strong bones). Twenty percent of hip fractures occur in men, so they’re not immune. Twenty percent of people who have a hip fracture die because their lack of mobility harms their lungs and they get pneumonia.