The Breaking Point - How Too Much Calcium and Over-Medication Can Break Your Bones

The Breaking Point - How Too Much Calcium and Over-Medication Can Break Your Bones

Conceal it within a capsule, a slickly glazed tablet, or in the form of a silky smooth liquid, and it is magically transformed into a "calcium supplement": easy to swallow, "good for the bones" and a very profitable money-maker for both the dietary supplement and mining industries. After all, in places like Florida, they are standing on billions upon billions of tons of the stuff. Calcium carbonate comes very cheap. But does it work? According to two recent studies published in Lancet (April, 2005) and the British Medical Journal (March, 2003) the answer to that question is a resounding, unequivocal NO.

Calcium & vitamin D, alone, will do nothing to prevent bone loss or fracture in the elderly. Were this the end of the story, we might write off the $50 or more we spend on calcium every year as a loss, and start drinking more milk. Not so quick! The Harvard Nurses' Study, involving 78,000 nurses and 12 years long, demonstrated clearly that the more dairy you consume, the higher rate of bone fracture you will experience. In fact, in countries where both dairy consumption and overall calcium levels in the diet are the lowest, bone fracture rates are also the lowest. Osteoporosis, after all, is a complex disease process, involving lack of strenuous exercise, chronic inflammation, multiple mineral and vitamin deficiencies, inadequate production of steroid hormones, and many other known and unknown factors, the least of which is in any probability related to a lack of calcium in the diet.

If we rule out cortisone or hyperparathyroidism induced osteoporosis, arguably the two main contributing factors are: 1) Dietary Acidosis: caused by the excessive consumption of acid forming foods like starchy grains, beans, dairy and meat, all of which result in the leaching of the alkaline mineral stores in our bones. (Additionally, the consumption of highly acidic substances like coffee, alcohol, sugar, over the counter and prescribed drugs, and even the metabolic byproducts of chronic stress can all put the acid/alkaline balance beyond the tipping point). 2) Malabsorption Syndrome: caused by the consumption of wheat, dairy, soy and corn. All four of these foods are used to produce industrial adhesives, e.g .wheat = book binding glue, dairy = elmer's glue, soy = plywood glue, corn = cardboard glue, and their ingestion leads to a disruption in the absorptive capacity of the villi in the intestines through "coating" and "atrophy" of the villi. Moreover, all four foods can cause an autoimmune response which results directly in damage to these villi. (For More Information Read: "Unglued: the Sticky Truth About Wheat, Diary, Corn & Soy.") Fortunately these two factors are completely preventable and treatable, having everything to do with the age old phrase: 'we are what we eat,' and the implicit counterpoint: 'we are not what we do not eat.' Not only is osteoporosis not caused by a lack of calcium, but it appears that excessive calcium intake may actually cause greater bone porosity and bone fracture rates later in life! After all, the average Chinese peasant eating a plant-based diet ingests approximately 150mg of food calcium a day - not the 1200mg a day the National Osteoporosis Foundation claims is necessary for women and men over 40 to maintain strong bones.

Paradoxically, not only does the afforementioned Chinese peasant have less dense bones than your average Westerner, but s(he) also has incomparably stronger bones. In fact, the Chinese language has no word for osteoporosis. These facts beg for a scientific explanation. A Dutch researcher by the name of Thijs Klompmaker, in his 2000 article "Excessive Calcium Causes Osteoporosis" provides a brilliant explanation as to why too much calcium interferes with bone health. According to Klompmaker's analysis, excessive calcium introduced through diary products and mineral supplementation coerces the bone-building cells known as osteoclasts to replicate prematurely, in effect causing a rapid and premature aging of the bone. Excess calcium in the blood can lead to the accumulation of plaque in the arteries and can exert both a hypertensive effect on the heart muscle and increase the risk of heart attack.

Excess calcium can also deposit into soft tissues, leading to osteoarthritis, muscle cramping, insomnia, constipation, kidney stones, and increased rates of breast and prostate cancers (note: calcium is mitogenic, stimulating proliferation of cells). To prevent this, the body shunts the extra calcium into the bone, where it is stored until it can be safely excreted. The problem with this protective measure is that when osteoblasts replicate approximately 60-70% die as they become part of the new bone mineral matrix they lay down. Because there are only a fixed number of replication cycles available to the body in a given lifetime, the bone density of those consuming excessive amounts of calcium may be greater earlier in life, but later in life there would be insufficient osteoblastic activity to countermand the bone-deconstructing activity of the osteoclasts.

Indeed, in Asia where calcium consumption is relatively low (100-200 mg daily), peak bone mass is reached later in life, and bones remain stronger and more resistant to fracture later in life. Sadly, conventional medicine pays far too little if any attention to the link between dietary and tissue acidosis/malabsorption syndrome and osteoporosis in particular, and the obvious causal link between diet and disease processes, in general. Moreover, with its questionable bias towards viewing disease as genetically predetermined and treatable with toximolecular chemical therapies, the true causes of suffering are rarely perceived, treated and resolved. In fact today the primary medical intervention for osteoporosis is the use of bisphosphonates, a class of "bone-building" drugs (e.g. Fosomax, Actonel, Boniva), which are made from a chemical that can be found on the shelves of your local hardware store as an industrial cleaning solvent. The same thing used to remove repugnant soap scum from the bathtub or to prevent rusting and scaling on industrial equipment is being given to millions of Americans to "treat" their weakening bones.

These chemicals poison and kill the group of bone-building cells known as the osteoclasts, which break down bad bone, making room for the new, stronger bone the osteoblasts put in its place. This causes bad bone to accumulate beneath the new good bone, causing an increase in bone density at the expense of bone quality. 3-5 years into taking these drugs, though bone density may increase, bone fracture rate may increase as well. The side effects of taking these drugs can be life-threatening, e.g. perforation of the intestines, ulceration of the stomach an intestines, liver and kidney damage, atrial fibrillation, shear bone fractures and an irreversible degeneration of the jawbone known as osteonecrosis. To make matters worse, there is a systematic trend to categorize over 18 million Americans as having a "disease" known as "osteopenia," when in fact this is not a medically relevant term at all.

It is not diagnostic of a disease state, nor is it an accurate predictor of future bone fracture rates. Technically speaking, "osteopenia" is defined having a T score -1 to -2 standard deviations from an arbitrarily defined norm, which is the approximate age in the human life cycle for peak bone mass: 25-30 years old. The Z score, were it to be emphasized, would take into the age of the person being evaluated, and would take into account that as one ages, the bone becomes less dense. The use of the T-score generates the illusion that older men and women who are experiencing the natural gradual decline in bone density called aging are not going through a normal process but rather a disease process.

And this provides the justification for prescribing unnecessary and dangerous medications. Ultimately bone health has everything to do with things we control, such as our ability to stay active, and control what we put into our bodies. We should not allow ourselves to be convinced that swallowing limestone supplements or toximolecular poisons will in any way fill the void that a lack of genuine nutrition and exercise left there.

Here are a few tips that should help you go a long way in preventing or reversing bone loss: 1) Eat Protein and Vitamin C rich Fruits and Vegetables! All bone begins as collagen, a substance whose intricate triple helix structure is formed through the Vitamin C driven hydroxlation of the essential amino acids L-lysine and L-proline. Focusing on selecting a diet closer to our hunters and gathers appears to be a key factor in preserving both bone density and bone strength. And remember: Vitamin C is not the same thing as ascorbic acid. Szent-Gyorgyi who received the Nobel Prize for its discovery in 1937 himself concluded that you needed a whole food source of this vitamin, e.g. paprika or adrenal extract, and not the synthetic crystals we now carelessly identify with this life-giving food factor in food in order to prevent scurvy. 2) Get sunlight! Vitamin D supplements are to Sunlight, what ascorbic acid crystals are to the Vitamin C activity found in whole, raw food.

The Sun itself provides both energy and information to the body. We should consider it essential, no less important than any other factor included within the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). 3) Green leafy vegetables! Kale, Collards, Chard, etc. Arguably, these amazing, life-giving vegetables pack more bone building punch than any other foods on the planet. Not only do these foods score high in plant-calcium, but according to the principles of biological transmutation laid down by the French scientist Louis Kervran (1901-1983), the magnesium, silica and potassium found abundantly in these foods can transmute through low energy nuclear transformation into additional calcium, as needed by the body. Foods like Kale are also extremely rich in the bone strengthening vitamins K, C, and the aforementioned amino acids L-lysine and L-proline. 4) Fight to reduce carbon emissions! What?

You heard me. Just as the oceans are now experiencing radical acidification via increased CO2 emissions, bleaching out the world's coral reefs as the water transforms into a PH increasingly closer to soda pop, our body's also respond to increased CO2 in the atmosphere and decreasing PH in our bodies by dumping calcium from our bones. We simply can't separate physical health from planetary health any longer. 5) Strenuous exercise. Use it or lose it. Lack of movement, in general, and lack of weight-bearing exercise in particular, can contribute to weakening bones. Even building sufficient muscle around our hips to provide cushioning, for instance, can go a long way in preventing a slip and fall from turning into a hip fracture and replacement. With a little research and a concerted effort we can take back control of our health and increase our sense of true well being.

To view biomedical citations on natural substances that build strong bone visit http://www.greenmedinfo.com/category/disease/osteoporosis

Sayer Ji is a writer, researcher and nutrition educator. Visit his website http://www.GreenMedInfo.com for strictly scientific information on the therapeutic effects of herbs, foods, spices and vitamins.

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