A business acquaintance and I were talking this morning about health and longevity. He told me his father will be 101 this year. He was in excellent health till his 90’s and things started to go downhill gradually. Most recently, he broke his hip and is now in a wheel chair.
We are told that calcium builds strong bones. Therefore, drink plenty of milk to have strong bones. But, this is wrong. Milk, in an of itself, doesn’t guarantee strong bones. Why? It’s easy. There are four components to having strong bones.
The first is an absorbable kind of calcium. Calcium from foods are very soluble. Calcium from pills generally are not. Most of the time they are calcium carbonate. This type of calcium is very difficult to absorb. In order to ensure adequate absorption of calcium, you need magnesium, the second component. If you don’t have magnesium in your body, the calcium will end up in the toilet.
And, like calcium, you need an absorbable magnesium – primarily from foods. Once the magnesium and calcium get to know each other the next hurdle is to get the calcium into the bloodstream. You need the third component, vitamin D3, to absorb the calcium as it passes through your duodenum. If you don’t have enough vitamin D3, then the calcium ends up in the toilet.
Assuming you can get the calcium into your bloodstream there are two things that can happen. One is for the calcium to get to your bones. That requires the fourth component, vitamin K2. If you don’t have enough vitamin K2, the calcium will be deposited in your arteries and heart valves – not where you want it.
You need absorbable vitamins and minerals. You need calcium, magnesium, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2. Most people are deficient in each of these nutrients. Long-term calcium deficiency leads to low bone density and increased risk of fractures and breaks.
It isn’t rocket science. Yet, the whole story is not being told. I am an advocate for balanced nutrition. Nutritional balance goes a very long way in reducing age-related disease and broken/fractured bones.