Topics covered in this snack-sized chapter:
Calcium is required for vascular contraction and vasodilation, muscle function, nerve transmission, intracellular signaling and hormonal secretion, though less than 1% of total body calcium is needed to support these critical metabolic functions.
Serum calcium is very tightly regulated and does not fluctuate with changes in dietary intakes
The body uses bone tissue as a reservoir for, and source of calcium, to maintain constant concentrations of calcium in blood, muscle, and intercellular fluids.
Calcium is essential for:
- Maintaining total body health
- Maintaining normal growth and development
- Keeping your bones and teeth strong over your lifetime (they contain 99% of the body's calcium, the remaining 1% is in blood)
- Ensuring the proper functioning of muscles and nerves
- Keeping the heart beating
- Helping blood clotting and regulating blood pressure
- The action of a number of hormones (particularly those associated with the thyroid and parathyroid glands)
Dairy products, such as milk, cheese, and yogurt
Canned salmon and sardines with bones
Leafy green vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach
Calcium-fortified foods - from orange juice to cereals and crackers
Ice cream, kale, oysters, ricotta
| Age
| Dose/day
|
Infants
| Birth - 6 months
| 210 mg
|
7 months - 12 months
| 270 mg
|
Children
| 1 -3 years
| 500 mg
|
4 - 8 years
| 800 mg
|
9 - 18 years
| 1300 mg
|
Adult
| 19 – 50 years
| 1000 mg
|
51 years and older
| 1200 mg
|
The symptoms of calcium deficiency are:
- One of the initial symptoms of calcium deficiency is muscle cramps.
- Delay in sitting up, crawling and walking of babies
- Tooth decay is another sign of calcium deficiency in the body
- Nerves become extremely irritable
A few of the possible calcium overdose symptoms include (but are not limited to):
- Changes in the heart rate