Calcium, the body’s most prevalent mineral, can be found in some foods, added to others, and taken as a dietary supplement. Calcium makes up a large part of the structure of bones and teeth, and it keeps tissue rigid, strong, and flexible, allowing proper physical movement.
Calcium’s main roles include strengthening and protecting bones, increasing muscular contraction, facilitating nerve-to-nerve transmission, and activating blood-clotting factors. Calcium also has other health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure and avoiding colon cancer. The bones store almost all of the calcium in the body (98 percent), and the body uses them as a calcium reservoir and source to maintain calcium homeostasis.
Calcium supplements are taken by mouth to treat and prevent low blood calcium, osteoporosis, and rickets. They’re injected into a vein to treat low blood calcium, which causes muscle spasms, as well as high blood potassium or magnesium toxicity. Supplementation is usually only required when the diet lacks sufficient calcium.
Constipation and nausea are two common side effects. When calcium is taken by mouth, high blood calcium levels are rare. Calcium supplements, in contrast to calcium obtained through food, appear to raise the risk of kidney stones. Calcium is required by adults in the quantity of one gram every day. Calcium is essential for the health of bones, muscles, and neurons.
Some calcium supplements contain vitamin D. Vitamin D is vital because it is turned into a hormone in the body, which subsequently stimulates the synthesis of intestinal proteins that aid calcium absorption.
Calcium chloride and calcium gluconate are two intravenous calcium formulations. Calcium acetate, calcium carbonate, calcium citrate, calcium gluconate, calcium lactate, and calcium phosphate are some of the oral forms.
Milk-alkali syndrome is caused by an excessive intake of calcium carbonate antacids/dietary supplements (such as Tums) over weeks or months, with symptoms ranging from hypercalcemia to potentially catastrophic kidney failure. Although some studies have suggested that too much calcium in the diet or as supplements may be linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular death, others have found no link, prompting a review to conclude that any risk can only be determined by further specific research.
When calcium supplements are given within four to six hours of each other, they reduce thyroxine absorption. People who take calcium and thyroxine at the same time or near-simultaneously incur the danger of insufficient thyroid hormone replacement and, as a result, hypothyroidism.