Disease Proof

How many of you remember taking vitamins as a kid? I know I do. Multivitamins, calcium pills, and even those prehistoric cartoon character wonder drugs. But do they really help? Well according to a new study calcium supplements do not. Steven Reinberg of HealthDay News reports:

While calcium supplements have been touted to prevent broken bones in adults, providing them to children may not help prevent fractures as they age, Australian researchers report.


"At two of the areas where we worry about fractures in later life -- the spine and the hip -- the giving of calcium supplements had no effect on bone health in children," said study lead author Dr. Tania Winzenberg, a musculoskeletal epidemiologist at the Menzies Research Institute, in Tasmania.

"It had been thought that calcium supplements would be more helpful than that in children," she said. "So, giving calcium supplements to children has little effect on fractures, and fractures is what we worry about."

Instead of supplements Dr. Winzenberg and colleagues make this recommendation for stronger bones:

Winzenberg's group recommends other approaches to improving kids' bone health, especially increasing vitamin D intake and eating more fruit and vegetables. Vitamin D is sourced mainly from exposure to sunlight, and is essential to the intestinal absorption of calcium.


The findings don't apply to children who may have significant problems with their bones or who can't eat dairy products, Winzenberg said. For healthy children, calcium remains an important part of the diet, she noted.

One expert agreed that calcium supplementation probably doesn't benefit healthy children.

"Healthy children, with an adequate diet, may have all the calcium they need to build bone," said Dr. David L. Katz, an associate professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "Growing bone might need a combination of materials, such as calcium combined with vitamin D, to grow stronger," he said.

Still worried about getting your kids enough calcium? Consider this section of Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease-Proof Your Child:

When you eat a health diet rich in natural foods, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds, it is impossible not to obtain sufficient calcium. Of course, when our calories come mostly from oil, flour, and animal muscle parts (which have no calcium), instead of unrefined plant foods, it can appear that without dairy the diet would be too low in calcium. But the minute we remove the processed junk food, sugar, and oil from the diet, and instead encourage the consumption of natural foods such as nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables, we get the healthy fats we need, and we also get plenty of calcium.


To raise healthy children we need to reduce dairy fat and substitute more fats and more calcium from raw nuts and seeds, tofu, and vegetables. Today both soy milk and orange juice are fortified with calcium and vitamin D. You do not have to be concerned about your children consuming too little calcium if you remove or reduce dairy.

Our body absorbs the calcium differently from different foods and aborbs calcium most efficiently from vegetables. Only about 32 percent of the calcium in milk is absorbed, while 54 percent of the calcium in bok choy is absorbed.

When you eat less animal protein and less salt, you do not lose as much calcium in the unrine and therefore need less calcium. Excess animal protein and sodium promote excessive calcium loss in the urine, increasing calcium requirements.1 When you eat a diet predominating in natural foods the way nature designed them, you do not have to worry about getting extra calcium. In fact, more natural plant foods added to the diet (fruits and vegetables) have been shown to have a powerful effect on increasing bone density and bone health.2 There are factors in these plants other than calcium that have beneficial effects on our bones. You and your child can achieve nutritional excellence utilizing a variety of natural foods while reducing dependence on dairy, and especially cheese and butter.

If you check out this previous post you’ll see that green veggies in particular deliver quite the calcium kick: Nutrient Density of Green Vegetables


Oh, and if you need help getting your kids to eat them, have a listen to this podcast: Dr. Fuhrman on Getting Children to Eat Well 1. Barzel US, Massey LK. Excess dietary protein can adversely affect bone. J Nutr 1998;128(6):1051-1053. Itoh R, Suyama Y Sodium excretion in relation to calcium and hydroxproline excretion in healthy Japanese population. Am J Clin Nutr 1996;63(5):735-740.

2. New SA, Robins SP, Campbell MK, et al. Dietary influences on bone mass and bone metabolism: further evidence of a positive link between fruit and vegetables consumption and bone health? Am J Clin Nutr 2000;71(1):142-151.