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Calcium and cola

bignickel

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bignickel
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I generally take a calcium/Vitamin D (400mg calcium, 500IU VitaminD) pill before I eat breakfast and dinner, especially if it's going to be protein-heavy. Wanna avoid my body leaching calcium out of my bones, as well as any kidney stones, etc.

My friend noticed me doing this while having a coke, and said that the phosphoric acid would just end up binding to the calcium, and thus: no benefit.

I figured that I was going to have a coke anyway, so without the pill, if the phosphoric acid was going to leach calcium from my body, then it would end up leaching more without the calcium pill?

What say you: is the cola cancelling out the calcium pill? Or is there so much calcium that the phosphoric acid never had a chance?
 
Calcium phosphate is very insoluble - it is an important structural element in bones and teeth. When a solution of a soluble calcium salt (e.g. calcium chloride) is mixed with a solution of a soluble phosphate (e.g. sodium phosphate or phosphoric acid), calcium phosphate will rapidly form and rain out as a fine precipitate that resembles very tiny snow crystals under a microscope. This is actually used in some biomedical experiments to get DNA into cells (the cells take up the crystals along with any DNA that has been trapped in them).

Your friend is correct that you are forming insoluble calcium phosphate in your mouth and stomach. However in googling nutrition sites I found that this calcium phosphate can be further processed in your stomach and intestine, absorbed, and converted to biologically accessible forms.
 
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I haven't really heard that cola is a problem for your bones (I haven't looked into the issue either, so that may not mean much). But I have heard that it's worse for your teeth than sodas like sprite which use citric acid instead of phosphoric acid. Unlike your bones, your teeth get exposed directly to the acid, it doesn't get processed by the digestive system or diluted into your blood. And I don't think calcium pills will do much to protect your teeth.
 
Well, from what I read, when you eat something protein heavy, your body needs calcium to digest it. If it doesn't find it laying around, then it grabs it wherever it can find it: your bones, if necessary. Furthermore, it's this kind of activity that can help lead to stones.

So, that's what I'm trying to avoid with taking calcium. Not to mention that as we get older, our bodies ability to 'digest' (is that the right word? absorb?) calcium becomes less and less, until we're only able to use 5% of the calcium we ingest. Skeptic magazine vol 23, # 3, page 16: "This percentage drops steadily throughout life, reaching about 20 percent in early adulthood, and plummeting to around 5 percent in old age"
 
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bignickel said:
Well, from what I read, when you eat something protein heavy, your body needs calcium to digest it. If it doesn't find it laying around, then it grabs it wherever it can find it: your bones, if necessary. Furthermore, it's this kind of activity that can help lead to stones.

So, that's what I'm trying to avoid with taking calcium. Not to mention that as we get older, our bodies ability to 'digest' (is that the right word? absorb?) calcium becomes less and less, until we're only able to use 5% of the calcium we ingest. Skeptic magazine vol 23, # 3, page 16: "This percentage drops steadily throughout life, reaching about 20 percent in early adulthood, and plummeting to around 5 percent in old age"
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If you want to strengthen your bones, then calcium tablets alone won't actually do much. You need to send signals to your body to tell it that those bones need to maintain or improve strength. How do you send those signals? You put those bones under a load. How do you safely put your bones under heavy loads?

Weight training.
 
casebro said:
So then, these petite little women with Osteoporosis need to go eat some beef. Got it.
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And do their squats and deadlifts too.

That last link didn't seem to mention it, but given that low protein diets can contribute to sarcopenia, and sarcopenia will exacerbate osteoporosis because you won't be loading your bones if your muscles can't support those loads, it seems like low protein can be bad for your bones even independently of any direct affect of protein on calcium absorption.
 
bignickel said:
I generally take a calcium/Vitamin D (400mg calcium, 500IU VitaminD) pill before I eat breakfast and dinner, especially if it's going to be protein-heavy. Wanna avoid my body leaching calcium out of my bones, as well as any kidney stones, etc.

My friend noticed me doing this while having a coke, and said that the phosphoric acid would just end up binding to the calcium, and thus: no benefit.

I figured that I was going to have a coke anyway, so without the pill, if the phosphoric acid was going to leach calcium from my body, then it would end up leaching more without the calcium pill?

What say you: is the cola cancelling out the calcium pill? Or is there so much calcium that the phosphoric acid never had a chance?
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Like Ziggurat suggested pick up weightlifting. A further suggestion is powerlifting. Both can be done as a non competitive activity and are far more affective than pill taking.
 
Ziggurat said:
If you want to strengthen your bones, then calcium tablets alone won't actually do much. You need to send signals to your body to tell it that those bones need to maintain or improve strength. How do you send those signals? You put those bones under a load. How do you safely put your bones under heavy loads?

Weight training.
Click to expand...

A good recommendation site.
 
Ziggurat said:
If you want to strengthen your bones, then calcium tablets alone won't actually do much. You need to send signals to your body to tell it that those bones need to maintain or improve strength. How do you send those signals? You put those bones under a load. How do you safely put your bones under heavy loads?

Weight training.
Click to expand...


Heh heh heh. "Bones" and "heavy loads".
 
casebro said:
So then, these petite little women with Osteoporosis need to go eat some beef. Got it.
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No. Sheesh. And I even spoon-fed you a source. First sentence of the abstract:
High dietary protein intakes are known to increase urinary calcium excretion and, if maintained, will result in sustained hypercalciuria.
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That's high calcium in the urine, not the blood.

Protein from meat increases the excretion of calcium via the kidneys.

I think a lot of walking is sufficient for bone health, not sure you need weight lifting. Weight training might be more effective, but not absolutely necessary.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
No. Sheesh. And I even spoon-fed you a source. First sentence of the abstract: That's high calcium in the urine, not the blood.

Protein from meat increases the excretion of calcium via the kidneys.

I think a lot of walking is sufficient for bone health, not sure you need weight lifting. Weight training might be more effective, but not absolutely necessary.
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Any load increases bone density such as walking but the benefit is limited because one will plateau quickly do to their body weight limit. Weightlifting of any type as long as one progresses to lifting heavier poundages forces bones to continually adapt by becoming denser. Another way to increase bone density is to use resistance bands of the type that look like super large rubber bands. Resistance bands provide what is known as "accomdating resistance". Weight training would have some benefit but its main purpose is overall muscular toning, muscle building and some strength do to the significantly lighter poundages typically used.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
I think a lot of walking is sufficient for bone health, not sure you need weight lifting. Weight training might be more effective, but not absolutely necessary.
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Walking suffices for what level of bone health? For what doctors consider acceptable? Quite possibly. But shouldn't you aspire to better than that? The older you get, the frailer doctors are OK with you being, because that's what happens to most people. But it's possible to do better than most people.

Plus, bone health is only one of the benefits of weightlifting for older people. Increased muscle mass helps maintain good sugar metabolism (avoid diabetes and all the horrors that go with that), increases resting metabolic rate (good for weightloss), helps protect against injuries, maintains independence, prevents falls, and may even help cognitive function. Walking is better than nothing, but it's not nearly as effective at any of that other stuff.
 
Sprinting might promote bone health if lifting weights is out of the question. Far better than just walking.

But probably preferably on a softer, bouncier surface than hard pavement.
 
Venom said:
Sprinting might promote bone health if lifting weights is out of the question. Far better than just walking.

But probably preferably on a softer, bouncier surface than hard pavement.
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If you're old and feeble, properly coached weightlifting is considerably safer than sprinting. About the only situation I can think of where you could spring but not weightlift is if you just didn't have access to weights.
 
There are certain subjects where people will tell you very confidently information that is wrong. Diets and diet supplements is one such subject. For example is there any reason for you to suspect that you are not getting enough calcium? If you are taking enough calcium then is there any benefit in taking more?

And taking supplements with both calcium and vitamin D was actually linked to a higher risk of stroke.
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Ref: https://gizmodo.com/most-supplements-and-dietary-changes-do-squat-for-your-1836225518?IR=T


https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-weight-loss-pills-reviewed#section13
 
Venom said:
Sprinting might promote bone health if lifting weights is out of the question. Far better than just walking.

But probably preferably on a softer, bouncier surface than hard pavement.
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Interesting...

I've been advised the opposite. i.e. impact exercise increases bone density.
 
I hate seeing those kid science fair experiments that soak bones in cola, the bones get rubbery and the kid then concludes something like, “Soda is bad for you because it destroys your bones.” Why doesn’t anyone call that stupidity out. This is why science education sucks in America.
 
novaphile said:
Interesting...

I've been advised the opposite. i.e. impact exercise increases bone density.
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Sprinting is quite high impact though so the advice is to sprint on rubber or turf rather than asphalt or concrete pavement to reduce that damage to the joints.
 
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