More than just Calcium
/Last August, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my femoral head (hip). I was devastated because I had to stop running, didn’t get to finish my summer race schedule and had no other significant form of stress management. I was also stuck on crutches and chasing 2 kids. The diagnosis was baffling because I was a rock star in the milk-drinking category. This got me thinking that bone health must be larger than calcium.
It Take More than Just Calcium
The relationship between calcium intake and bone healthy is complex and poorly understood. Calcium alone is not enough to keep your bones strong. You need an array of cofactors that includes vitamin A, D, and K2 for the body to use the calcium that is consumed. Vitamin D acts as a hormone telling our body to use and absorb calcium properly in concert with vitamin A and vitamin K2 tells the body where to put the calcium. There must be a synergy between this group of nutrients that can only be found when you eat real whole foods.
A glass of conventional milk does not provide the cofactors needed to use the calcium that is found in it. Factory farms raise cattle that are not fed their natural diet (so no vitamin K2) and then their milk is homogenized, pasteurized, reconstituted, and fortified. The vitamins that conventional milk does contain have been added back in a synthetic form that your body does not know how to use.
To get the most out of your dairy products, choose ones that have been processed as little as possible. Look for grassfed butter, raw and grassfed cheese and raw milk from a small local dairy – if the cows were treated well, you can’t beat the nutrition that this milk will provide. If you don’t tolerate cow’s milk, then goat and sheep’s milk is also a good option.
Vitamin A and D
Bone resorption - performed by osteoclasts and bone growth - performed by osteoblasts are complimentary to one another and make up the process called bone remodeling. This allows bones to optimize their shape in response to environmental cues, to adjust to the occurrence and repair of injury, and to allow the body to tightly regulate calcium levels. Vitamin A and D need to work in concert for this to happen. Too much or too little can be toxic to your bones.
Nature is amazing and provides Vitamin A and D together and in the correct ratio in foods like eggs and full-fat unprocessed (raw) dairy. In addition, vitamin A can be found in creature foods like shellfish and liver. The best source of vitamin D is sunshine - the tricky part is that sunscreen actually blocks the UVB rays needed to produce vitamin D. If you are fair skinned it will only take a few minutes of sunshine to fill your vitamin D tank and then you can seek shade. Here again, nature is amazing and the length of time you need is dependant on your skin color and the amount of sun that you can tolerate.
It is best not to try to supplement a just vitamin A or D because our body does not use the synthetic versions as well as real food. If you must supplement, try a real food supplement like fermented cod liver oil by Green Pastures.
Vitamin K2
I can bet that most all of you had not heard of vitamin K2 before you met me and my grass-fed soapbox. It is a baby in the nutrient world only just being discovered as it’s own separate vitamin in 1997. One of vitamin K2’s primary responsibilities is to make sure that calcium is deposited in the right places within the body. We want it in our bones and teeth not our arteries and kidneys. Dr. Chris Masterjohn says, “Research is in fact rapidly redefining heart disease largely as a deficiency of this vitamin.” Kidney stones are also now thought to be a complication of vitamin K2 deficiency.
Animals make vitamin K2 from vitamin K1 rich plants that they eat while grazing. Our best sources are grassfed organ meat, unprocessed milk and kefir, cheese, butter and ghee. You can also get Vitamin K2 from properly raised hen eggs and fish eggs.
Magnesium
60% of Magnesium is found in the bones, in combination with calcium and phosphorus. Greater magnesium intake is significantly related to higher bone density in men and women. There is approximately a 2% increase in whole body bone mineral density for every 100 milligram per day increase in magnesium. The thought is that not getting enough magnesium may interfere with our ability to process calcium.
Thanks to widespread deficiencies of magnesium in American soil, magnesium may be one of the most critically deficient minerals in our diet. Dark, leafy greens grown in nutrient dense soils are good sources of magnesium – the darker the color the more magnesium. Homemade bone broth, true sea salt and raw milk also supply magnesium. Soaking in an Epsom salt baths lets us absorb magnesium through the skin and the supplement Nature Calm are both excellent ways to increase your magnesium intake.
Phosphorus
Phosphorus is an important mineral in bone health but has been adulterated by Big Food. It is refined and added in the form of phosphoric acid to foods like soft drinks and packaged junk food. Phosphorus in this form is dangerous in the amounts that most are consuming and the consequences are tooth (calcium) erosion and bodily magnesium depletion. This is because, like calcium and magnesium, phosphorus is an important component of bone and bone-supportive nutrition requires these three minerals to be in proper proportion to one another, as they occur in real food.
In its natural form, phosphorus occurs alongside the nutrients we need to make use of it. Animal products – especially eggs, fish, homemade bone broth, and raw dairy – are sources of phosphorus and the various phosphorus- cooperative nutrients, like vitamin D, vitamin A, calcium and magnesium.
We don’t need to drink milk to have strong bones but we do need to make sure that we are eating nutrient rich food and getting plenty of sunshine. If bone health is an issue, think fixing like with like. Drink lots of bone broth and use it in cooking to increase your bone health. It has everything that your bones need. Calcium is important but we likely need less calcium and more cofactors.
