Coral Calcium
Coral calcium, which combines calcium with the remnants of living coral found off of Okinawa, Japan, is similar to calcium carbonate, so health enthusiasts wanting to preserve bone density usually take a coral calcium supplement with orange juice or after a meal. Coral calcium is said to enhance your bone strength, although doctors and nutritionists also recommend pure calcium carbonate or calcium citrate. Most vitamin manufacturers offer both for sale, so you can decide which is best for you. Follow the guidelines of your health practitioner or nutritionist in making the decision as to which kind of calcium is right for you and your diet.
What is Calcium Carbonate?
You're a Ph.D. scientist and not absent-minded in the least, but you're so darn busy giving lectures and running experiments that you forget good nutrition! Being a scientist you distrust some of the claims about various minerals and herbs. But you can't be skeptical of good old calcium. Since you still remember your chemistry courses, you know that calcium carbonate is mainly a calcium salt used as a dietary supplement to prevent or reverse bone density loss. You particularly need this calcium supplement after pregnancy or breast-feeding--you finally settled down in your 40s, so now you have to concentrate on raising a bright child! You can take a higher dosage of calcium carbonate than calcium citrate, and not need as many pills--fortunate because you have to rush off to Oslo to accept the Nobel Prize! Your fellow scientific genius, Dr. Andrew Weil, cautions that calcium carbonate isn't as easily absorbed--he recommends calcium citrate above all other forms, including a new high-absorption calcium called calcium aspartate anhydrous. He says the claims of highest and most rapid absorption are without merit. Ah well, you always knew you were a maverick too. You take calcium carbonate, but hang on to your calcium citrate. Just remember to take calcium carbonate with vitamin D (Dr. Weil recommends 1,000 IU a day) after the banquet, and have a glass of orange juice in addition to the champagne. You're not only a brilliant woman, you're also wise...and healthy.
Peak Bone Mass and Calcium
When you're in your twenties, everything feels great. You've acquired up to 90 percent of peak bone mass and bone density. You have a car, a killer apartment, you're in love and you have a smile models would kill for. By the time you get to be your mother's age, the apartment has been traded in for an equity line of credit, the love of your life forgets your anniversary and you'd smile if your bones didn't feel so darn lousy some of the time. You wish you were your teenage daughter.
Actually, unless your daughter takes a calcium supplement and avoids hanging out for hours at the computer, you don't want to be her. The reason: She, like you, may not be getting enough calcium (or vitamin D). The NIH estimates that less than ten percent of girls aged 10-17 get the calcium they need. So before you go into a lament of "Oh, I wish I were your age," order calcium carbonate or a zinc and calcium supplement--for both you and your daughter. The zinc will endear you to your little girl, because zinc is linked to fighting acne, which you're happy you don't have any more after menopause, right? See, there are some benefits to growing older--after all, your daughter is still fretting over boys and your hubby just cooked your favorite dinner as a belated anniversary gift. He's lucky that your newly strengthened bones won't have to kick him all the way back to that first apartment.
More Estrogen, More Calcium
You've had the hormone replacement therapy. You should feel terrific. But the doctor says your spine is still a nightmare, and you feel as depressed as you were in your angst-filled twenties. Why? Isn't estrogen therapy supposed to be the panacea? Yes and no.
Estrogen therapy doesn't mean you stop taking vitamin D and calcium carbonate. Also, if you smoke, you're undoing all the good hormone replacement therapy does. Smoking depletes vital vitamins and minerals, such as calcium and vitamin D. Overweight? An exercise program combined with a regular calcium supplement and weight loss program will reverse the damage. Exercise also helps vitamin D and calcium do bone density rebuilding, since strength training in particular makes bones tougher and more resilient. Just like you.
You have more wisdom than you did in your twenties--or should. Combine hormone replacement therapy with a calcium supplement. Then, share some of your sage advice with your twenty-year-old children and your elderly parents, who are going through their own pains. Buy them calcium and vitamin D too. When they're happy, that hormone replacement therapy will make you feel a lot better.
A Spoonful of Softgels Help the Calcium Go Down
You'd like to improve your health and your bone density, but the calcium supplement feels like a dinosaur bone going down. Considering that dinosaur bones in the LA Museum of Natural History still look great without calcium, you're ready to skip the calcium carbonate. Don't.
While doctors swear by chelated vitamins, soft gels and liquid calcium supplements are easier for many people to digest. After all, you don't have the powerful jaws and strong stomach of a T-rex...but you're still around 100 million years later. All because you take your vitamin D and calcium.
Just make sure that you have a calcium and magnesium supplement--magnesium makes calcium absorption easier. Now you can swallow, gulp and stomp around just like the dinos did in "Jurassic Park."
Bone Up on Bone Density
Dem bones, dem bones gotta walk around, but between running the marathon that is your life and succumbing to the fast-food nutrient poor regimen that so many people fall into, you find that your bones don't walk around as much. Plus the "Got Milk?" campaign doesn't help if you're lactose-intolerant. Congratulations--you're losing bone density. Why? You lose bone density if you:
- Don't consume a diet rich in vitamin D, vitamin A, magnesium and zinc
- Smoke heavily
- Are a woman of Asian or of Northern European ancestry
- Don't take a calcium supplement
Some good news for women of African descent: You have a low incidence of bone density loss. But no matter what your statistical picture, you still need a calcium carbonate supplement. Dr. Andrew Weil recommends 1,500 mg of calcium daily for women, 1,000 to 1,200 mg per day for men, plus 400 to 800 IU of vitamin D. While you're taking your calcium and your Lactaid with calcium and vitamin D, don't forget to move those bones outside in the sun, which is an abundant source of vitamin D and makes you want to exercise. Oh, the leg bone's connected to the kneebone...