How To Get The Calcium That Isn't In The ThinkPharm Formula

The recommended daily allowance of calcium once again varies depending on what government organisation you’re looking at.

US says 1200mg is needed if you’re over 50 and 1000mg is needed if you’re under 50 (1). WHO (World Health Organisation) says 500mg (1) and the UK NHS (National Health Service) says 700mg (2).

Who is correct? The answer is once again too complicated to just give a simple number. It depends on how much of that calcium is being absorbed.

What does calcium absorption depend on?

The first factor is your vitamin D levels. Fortunately, the ThinkPharm Formula has a good dose of vitamin D, although some people may need more (as we mention on our other pages on vitamin D).

Other deficiencies in nutrients such as zinc may also reduce your calcium absorption (as we mention on our pages on zinc). Fortunately, we try to package most nutrients into the ThinkPharm Formula so these should not be holding you back.

The food itself makes a huge difference to the absorption. For example, the proportion of calcium absorbed from collard greens seems to be 65%, whereas spinach is as low as 5% (3) (4) (5). That means your calcium from collard greens goes 13 times further than your calcium from spinach! Pretty crazy really. This is why just giving a number with an RDA doesn’t really mean anything and doesn’t serve people. This is misinformation at its worst.

Why is there such a difference in absorption? Spinach contains these things called oxalates. Oxalates bind to calcium, which can prevent its absorption. There’s even some thinking that it might leach calcium from the body.

They did a study where patients were given a controlled baseline diet which had 795mg of calcium. These patients were in a positive calcium balance. In other words, they were gaining more calcium than they were losing; 18 mg of calcium per day to be precise. When they added 175grams of spinach to the controlled baseline diet, their new daily intake of calcium was now 997mg. You’d expect them to have a more positive calcium balance because of the higher calcium intake. Instead, these people were now in a negative calcium balance; -65 mg per day (6)!

Another thing to watch out for is phytic acid. Phytic acid explains why all beans and nuts have been found to be poor sources of calcium (5). They are all quite high in phytic acid. In fact, a study from the world’s most influential scientific journal (Nature) showed that in China, 56.3% of people cannot be in a positive calcium balance because their phytic acid is too high relative to their calcium intake (7). On average they consumed 338.1mg of calcium (quite low) and 1186mg of phytic acid. To put this into context, you would only need about 50 grams of certain beans (not soaked or fermented) to reach this unfavourable quantity of phytic acid (8). We talk more about the harms of phytic acid in our second article on zinc.

Most people trying to eat healthy will incidentally consume quite a bit of phytic acid because they eat lots of these “healthy” foods like nuts, beans and grains. The reality is that if you don’t focus on getting lots of calcium to offset these foods, your body will eventually suffer the consequences of low calcium.

We believe the WHO’s recommendation of 500mg of calcium will be too low for those eating lots of nuts, beans and whole grains so we believe it is best to aim for 1200mg if this is you.

It is thought that your body can’t absorb more than 500mg of calcium in one sitting, so try to spread out your intake. Kale, Bok/Pak Choi, collard greens (similar to spring greens if you are UK based), turnip greens and broccoli are some pretty good sources that are absorbed well (3) (4) (5). Dairy sources like hard cheeses and yogurt are good sources. So are certain canned fish like sardines and salmon with the bone in (4). Although the calcium in the animal foods isn’t as well absorbed as with vegetables like collard greens, they are quite dense in calcium so they make a good contribution. Although tofu is high in calcium, this calcium is not naturally occurring. This means consuming tofu is not too dissimilar from taking a calcium supplement and as we mentioned in our page on calcium, we don’t agree with calcium supplementation because of the negative health effects.

What else can we do to increase our calcium absorption?

4 more things: 1) Consuming more probiotics (9). Probiotics have been shown to increase calcium absorption. You can take a pill, but raw cultured foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles will contain hundreds of times more probiotics per serving than a capsule. If it doesn’t say it on the label, don’t assume that they’re always raw and containing probiotics. There are plenty of pickles out there that are pasteurised and use vinegar to make the food sour.

2) Inulin (10). Inulin is a prebiotic. Prebiotics are basically a certain type of fibre that feeds your good gut bacteria. These gut bacteria then produce acids in the colon which improve calcium absorption. For sources of inulin, this is a good reader-friendly article: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/prebiotics/#axzz416iN50fL.

3) Resistant starch (11). Resistant starch is another type of prebiotic which increases calcium absorption. For sources of resistant starch, this is a good reader-friendly article: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-resistant-starch/#axzz41b8tUHSp. Quick tip: whenever you take cooked starchy food and you allow it to cool, this increases the resistant starch content. If you then reheat the food later on, this further increases the resistant starch and its associated benefits. Even more reason to cook certain foods in batch and reheat when needed.

4) Other fruits and vegetables. Other than resistant starch and inulin, there are more types of prebiotics found in virtually every fruit and vegetable.

5) Protein has also been shown to increase calcium absorption in the gut (12).

If you want to learn more about the vitamin and mineral content of foods, you can see the original data at https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ or https://nutritiondata.self.com/ (which takes its data from the FDC website and make it more easily accessible).

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Disclaimer: Food supplements are intended to correct nutritional deficiencies, maintain an adequate intake of certain nutrients, or to support specific physiological functions. The ThinkPharm Formula (or any other food supplement) is not a medicine and therefore cannot and does not claim to treat or prevent disease. All content on this website is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. None of the scientific studies quoted on this website qualify as proof or implication that ThinkPharm Health's supplements treat or prevent disease. Findings of scientific studies do not always represent reality. It is always difficult for scientific studies to reach accurate conclusions regarding nutrition and its relationship to diseases. Please consult your healthcare professional before making any significant changes to your diet and lifestyle. ThinkPharm Health is not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting on information from this website.