Calcium and vitamin D are essential to building strong, dense bones when you’re young and to keeping them strong and healthy as you age. The information included here will help you learn all about calcium and vitamin D – the two most important nutrients for bone health.
What is Calcium and What Does it Do?
In the average body, 99% of the calcium is located in bones and teeth, and 1% of calcium is in the blood. It plays an important role in health function, bone growth and lower the risk of osteoporosis in later years. The calcium in the blood helps regulate heart and other muscle contractions, and transmits nerve. Insufficient calcium intake in the diet may lead to calcium being pulled from bones to maintain the blood calcium level. Bone continuously breaks down while new bone forms, thus bones are constantly reforming every day.
Every day, we lose calcium through our skin, nails, hair, sweat, urine and feces. Our bodies cannot produce its own calcium. That’s why it’s important to get enough calcium from the food we eat. When we don’t get the calcium our body needs, it is taken from our bones. This is fine once in a while, but if it happens too often, bones get weak and easier to break.