Dietary Supplements: Calcium to Supplement

Dietary Supplements: Calcium

To Supplement or Not to Supplement?

A brief overview of the benefits of dietary supplementation, with a specific focus on calcium supplements. The article takes a positive view of supplements, provided the supplementation takes place in dialogue with the individual's biology and lifestyle needs, and provided that supplements are dispensed with clear labeling regarding individual nutritional needs.

To Supplement or Not to Supplement?

Good foods and bad foods, good supplements and bad supplements -- too much of modern nutritional advice, regarding supplementation casts the current debate about the composition of the American diet in stark, black-and-white terms. The fact is, good nutrition is not about good and bad, rather it is a question of how to balance every person's complex daily intake, exercise, and lifestyle needs. A vegan may require a B-vitamin supplement, to make up for nutritional deficiencies due to a lack of animal protein in his or her diet, but a dedicated steak-and-potatoes eater might benefit from a multivitamin supplement that the vegan does not require, given that the vegan eats plenty of multicolored and highly nutritious organic vegetables. A triathelete might do well to stock up on easily packed 300 calorie protein bars as fuel for a marathon bike ride, while a sedentary office worker who struggles to workout at a moderate pace for 30 minutes, three times a week, might benefit from lighter, more filling snacks that take longer to eat.

Perhaps one of the reasons there is such confusion about the issue of supplementation is the broad, sweeping claims made by popular manufactures of supplements, which promise generic cure-alls rather than sound advice. Not every woman may need iron supplements, if she eats fortified grain cereals and eats red meat. The personal and inexact science of creating an ideal diet, tailored to the individual, must be communicated on supplement labels by law. The current nutritional labels that give guidelines for generic 2,000-calorie diets for daily requirements, regardless of age, background, lifestyle, and quite often gender, are often misleading.

Lifestyle and activity level are thus two often overlooked components of nutrition that are not specified in currently labeling requirements and must be taken into consideration in tailoring a very specific dietary and supplementation balance for the individual. Gender and ethnicity are two other components. Women and individuals with lactose intolerance, for example, would do well to consider using supplementation to get their daily calcium requirement, given the difficulty of getting an adequate amount through the current typical American diet alone. According to the 2006 press release "Study Shows Unexpected Outcomes for Calcium and Vitamin D Supplementation" of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, although postmenopausal women have shown only moderate, even "disappointing" bone mass gains with supplementation, the long-term benefits are still under scrutiny, and it would be a shame to put the current generation under possible risk in the future, by denouncing the benefits of supplements to give at least the nutritionally optimal daily intake.

Moreover, the study did not take into consideration the fact that certain persons are more at risk for later bone loss due to osteoporosis, because of frame size and genetic history (Caucasian and Asian women are at particular risk), or because they cannot take in enough calcium through normal food sources, due to lactose intolerance. Rather than attempting to prevent fractures later in life, after bone mass is already on the decline, it might be better for a nutritionist to stress the need to get enough calcium, early on, when bones are still being built. "At this time, the most effective treatment of osteoporosis is prevention. The stronger the bones are when people are young, the less likely they are to fracture easily later in life," and one preventative method is meeting the individual's daily calcium needs, along with weigh-bearing exercise, to aid in the development of bone mass. (Heinz, 1992) "The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, says everyone over the age of 8 needs at least 1,000 mg of calcium per day, and teens and seniors need even more (1,200 to 1,300 mg). Even people who regularly consume dairy products may not get enough calcium. For example, a glass of milk contains about 300 mg. So if you don't drink 3 or 4 cups of milk a day (or the equivalent), take 300 mg of calcium for every glass you fall short. Most multivitamins with minerals won't have this much calcium, because there simply isn't room in the tablet or capsule. Consumers who need calcium must take it separately. Seniors should consider a combination product with vitamin D as well as calcium." ("The Dietary Supplement Pyramid," 2006, CNC)