Calcium, what's the big deal?

The big question about calcium, exactly what is calcium and why calcium is so important to you and I?

What is calcium?

Calcium is one of the most abundant-nutrient found in our body. 99% of the total calcium of our body is stores in bones and teeth. The remaining 1% calcium then be found throughout our body into blood, muscles and the fluid between cells. Calcium is also needed for muscle contraction and the secretion of hormones and enzymes. There is much more use of calcium, but to put it simply, calcium is important for bone repair/formations and the contraction of the muscles. Calcium is also the answer for strong bones and dense.

Different types of calcium, which is the best?

Calcium is an element and comes in various forms. There is calcium citrate, calcium phosphate, Calcium Gluconate, calcium carbonate and etc the list can go on and on, but which is the most common that is best absorbed by the body?

There is something called the elemental weight. Calcium phosphate elementary has a weight of 31-38% while the calcium carbonate elementary has a weight of 40%. Let's use the calcium carbonate (the most common form of calcium found in the market) as an example, if you take 500 mg of calcium carbonate, only 200 mg elemental calcium is available for absorption. I'll make things simpler, giving it an analogy. Let's assume that you are now going down to the fuel station to pump some petrol for your car. There are 2 types of petrol and both are mixed with water. For each liter of gasoline, gasoline X contains 20% gasoline while gasoline Y contains 40% gasoline. We know that cars require gasoline to move rather than water. So, the obvious choice is Y gasoline. The same goes for us, our body can only use the elemental calcium and therefore, calcium carbonate is one of the best options of calcium supplements to take.

Absorption of calcium & vitamin D
Have calcium alone is not as effective taking calcium with a good dose of vitamin d. vitamin d helps improve the absorption of calcium. To put things simply, let's imagine things that way. Before calcium is absorbed by our body, it must go through a port that is locked and requires a key to open it. Vitamin d is the key to open this port to allow the calcium in your body and which allows the body use calcium.

What do not consume calcium with
We shouldn't be consuming calcium with zinc and iron. This is how our body prioritizes calcium on the other two minerals. I advise you to take zinc and iron at a time when your body has little calcium, preferably 30mins-60mins after drinking milk. When buying multivitamins, also look at the nutrition data sheet to see if any one of these minerals are hidden together.

How much calcium is necessary?
If you're just an average adult, I would recommend having anything 800 mg-1200mg calcium per day. However, if you're an athlete or a bodybuilder, you should be taking to 8 oz – 2300mg of calcium daily. good protein sources include milk, yoghurt, cheese. Have more than calcium 2500mg can cause you to get wet banquettes.

Benefits
Calcium helps you maintain a delay of healthy bone mass, the onset of osteoporosis and articles of recent research showed that calcium helps weight loss.

By Darcy Dal

Article source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=darcy_dal