Week of August 20, 2009, Issue #722
FRONT
Well, Well, Well: Calcium
Alphabet greens
Connie Howard / health@vueweekly.com
When our arteries are more calcified than our bones and teeth, and when osteoporosis-linked bone fractures are no longer limited to thin postmenopausal women, but rather common in young milk-drinking men and women devoted to weight-bearing exercise—which they are—we're clearly doing something wrong.
But do we really need more calcium or yet another drug, or do we just need to take a closer look at the nutritional picture? Virtually none of the osteoporosis stories I've seen make mention of the key role vitamin K plays in assuring dietary calcium actually gets deposited into our bones. Fewer yet make mention of the fact that many of us—most, according to some of the research that's been done—are vitamin K deficient. But if we bruise or bleed mysteriously easily and have brittle bones and clogging arteries, we likely are.
Many of us are deficient because we shun vitamin K-rich collard greens, kale and spinach, but causes of vitamin K deficiency go far beyond shunning greens. Impaired fat absorption can cause vitamin K and calcium deficiency. So can eating disorders, cholesterol-lowering and blood-thinning medications, celiac disease and Crohn's disease.
More commonly though, our love affair with aspirin and alcohol deplete vitamin K and calcium. So do low levels of the digestive gut bacteria that manufacture vitamin K, which is the reason infants, whose guts haven't yet had the necessary microbes settle in, are given vitamin K at birth. And those essential microbes are depleted every time we go on antibiotics or take Advil-like pain relievers. The role of friendly digestive microbes is almost impossible to underestimate—it is key to all nutrient absorption.
Common among the health conscious, even very low-fat diets deplete vitamin K levels—vitamin K, like vitamin D, is a fat-soluble vitamin and is absorbed along with dietary fat, not so much with low-fat foods.
Truth is, dietary calcium is usually plentiful—more than plentiful, as vegans know—but we tend to absorb it poorly or put it in the wrong places, which leaves us with non-elastic arteries and bones resembling Loofahs.
But what, you may ask, do hardened arteries have to do with osteoporosis, calcium and vitamin K? The average calcium content of blood vessels at age 80 is many, many times greater than that found at age 40; the average calcium content of bones much lower at 80 than 40. And though the march of time is inexorable, hardening in all the wrong places can be postponed—those who consciously protect their health often have elastic arteries and non-porous bones well past the age of 80.
It's not exactly fun being conscious of the effects of our so-tempting and so-available convenience and fun food options—I now wish I'd enjoyed the beer garden and my Fat Franks at the Folk Festival just a little less—but our phosphorus-heavy, Coke and beer, pastry and chocolate-loving ways result in our bodies taking calcium out of our food and bones and putting it in all the wrong places.
Vitamins K, D, A, B, C ... alphabet soup made of greens instead of grains, for a healthy change. And to add to the alphabet soup, psychiatric health news that the common supplement NAC (N-acetylcysteine) offers hope for hair-pulling and other obsessive disorders. Dr. Jon Grant, an addictions and compulsive behaviour disorders psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota, found NAC to help about half of the hair-pullers in his study, but the amino acid derivative is also an antioxidant, an immune-booster, an antiviral and has been effectively used for bronchitis, heavy metal chelation, and as liver support, which is, of course, essential to optimal nutrient uptake.
We have a drug-industry based medical system, but there's hope in the basics. More and more of us are opting out of pharmaceutical options whenever possible, and more and more of us are voting for choice and integration in health care—the Charter of Health Freedom Petition protecting access to natural health products has now passed the 32 000 signatures marker. V
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