The Calcium Connection

Calcium isn’t just the ‘bone and teeth’ mineral. It also helps nerves, muscles and shield against lead pollution.

Actually, calcium is a highly versatile nutrient playing a wide variety of roles that are crucial to the proper functioning of the body. Calcium is indispensably involved in every beat of our hearts and every thought that passes through our heads. It’s true that 99 percent of the calcium in the body is found in the teeth and bones. Without the work of the other one percent, however, life would be impossible.

Calcium is necessary for the proper transmission of messages along the body’s nervous system, and at the critical control points where nerves and muscles meet. It plays an important role in muscle contraction, both in relaying the command impulse from nerve to muscle, and in the actual contraction of the muscle itself.

If the body does not get enough calcium, the entire neuromuscular system goes haywire. This condition, called tetany, is characterized by a sharp bending at the wrist and ankle joints, uncontrollable muscle twitchings, cramps and convulsions.

Some scientists believe that the damage done when nerve cells form without sufficient calcium is the best explanation for the development of the nerve disease multiple sclerosis.

Multiple Sclerosis. This disease is characterized by the destruction of myelin, the fat-like substance that surrounds and protects nerve fibers. Calcium is known to speed the production of one on the key constituents of myelin. This fact, plus the general importance of calcium in holding cells together, led Dr. Paul Goldberg to conclude that a lack of calcium in a child’s critical growth years would irreparably weaken the myelin structure and increase the risk of multiple sclerosis later in life.

Crucial To the Heart. The heart is a muscle, the most important one in the body. Insofar as calcium is crucial to the normal contraction and relaxation of all muscles in the body, it is crucial to the healthy functioning of the heart.

Calcium also plays a role in preventing heart disease by holding down the level of cholesterol in the blood. A study by the Nutrition Reports International of the effects of supplementing the diet with calcium and vitamin D found that calcium significantly lowered cholesterol levels of a group of elderly women, at the same time it was preventing bone loss.

The adult Recommended Dietary Allowance for calcium, by the way, is from 1000-1300 milligrams. Supplementation is suggested by nutritionists for anyone who is not meeting his or her needs through diet alone. To date, no cases of calcium toxicity have ever been reported from food sources.