The Calcium Lie : Osteoporosis

I got a close colleague who sent me an article couple days back, expressing his confusion about soy myths and truths. He often seemed confused by health myths and truths, but he seemed to eat everything under the sun, animal organs, pig's intestines, duck's blood, etc. All non-organic animal meat and organs, filled with toxins such as pesticides, synthetic sex hormones and antibiotics. The thing is, he wants to be healthy with his on going eating habit. Now folks, tell me, how can I help him? I hope someone could comment and provide some advise for him.

Today, I would like to debunk another health myth. This time, it is about calcium. I'm sure you've heard that the cause of osteoporosis and the key to its prevention revolve around calcium, right? Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. 

I've always tell my colleagues, friends and relatives. We are all victims of health lies. These lies, are quite literally killing us, a big fat lie, that has sucked us all in, consumers and medical professionals alike. Primary among those lies is the notion that bones are made of calcium, with the dogmatic exhortation from almost every doctor on the planet that we all need supplemental calcium in order to have strong bones. This is absolutely untrue, and without any reliable scientific evidence. In fact, our bones, are made of 12 minerals including calcium, and we need all of them in proper proportions in order to have healthy bones and a healthy metabolism.

It started with a wild notion that calcium is essential for strong bones. Nearly all of us, including doctors, have brought into this 'calcium' bullshit. We believe that unless we get loads of calcium, our bones will fracture or crumble to powder. Let me tell you. It is NOT true. It's never been true, and the basic science that taught in every university in the world, shows us the error of this belief system. 

If you take calcium to strengthen your bone, you are signing your own death warrant. Think of this, calcium hardens concrete. Imagine what it can harden in your body! Let me tell all of you whoever reading this right now, why we are all bought into this calcium lie. Here is the story. It started with the creation of refrigerator. Yes, the refrigerator used at your house. You must be thinking, what on earth refrigerator has to do with calcium and bones? Keep on reading folks.

The invention of refrigerator was the beginning of humankind's modern health crisis. So, why did this cause health crisis for humankind? The answer is simple. We stop using sea salt to preserve meat and other foods, thereby robbed our bodies of essential minerals we need to survive and thrive. 

We have all failed to understand and recognize the importance of basic biochemistry that lies at the heart of the medical conditions that plague modern humans. You probably already know that our bodies are mainly water, approximately 72% of our body weight is water, pure and simple. This is a basic premise of our physiology. Anything we put in our bodies MUST be water soluble, or have specific transport mechanism to be absorbed. The remainder of your body weight is minerals. All 28% of it, ranging from potassium and sodium, calcium, selenium and copper, manganese, magnesium, to the more rare trace minerals like fluorine, cobalt, etc. 

Now, the planet oceans and and salt beds contain all the minerals and trace minerals we need to be in perfect health. Sea salt and rock salt contain all of the minerals in the exact proportion that our bodies requires, except sodium. Quite simply, these minerals are necessary for every single body function to work, biochemical, electrical, chemical and physiological. 

Getting back to the refrigerator. When we stopped preserve food with naturally occurring salts, we became progressively deficient in some, if not all, of those essential minerals. Because chemical 'fingerprint' is passed from mother to child, each generation has progressively become more deficient in these essential minerals. 

Meanwhile, we too, have severely deplete the soil, in which we grow our food. The introduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides actually robbed and depleted the soil of its nutrients. Then, came the final blow. Table salt. Early in the 20th century, scientific advances brought us the white table salt, which only contains two minerals, sodium and chloride. It was a fine and granular salt. It was convenient. We then also have iodized salt, which added a mineral called iodine. 

Our bodies began to seek desperately for the minerals we need to survive, and it should have been our first clue that many other vital nutrients were missing when we began to refine our salt. But we failed to recognize the signals. Our collective downhill slide into widespread mineral deficiency  began to accelerate.

Most people, even many medical professionals, began to believe that bones are made of calcium. As i mentioned before, our bones are made of at least 12 minerals. One of them is calcium, but a proper balance of all these minerals are essential for bone health, strong bones and the prevention of osteoporosis. By the way, osteoporosis is defined as a loss of minerals from the bones, and not just calcium deficiency. 

Our doctors and health medias told us we need more calcium to keep our bones strong, so we started popping calcium supplements, adding calcium to many of our foods, and we were told to drink couple glasses of calcium-rich milk everyday. This oversimplification for the benefit of the dairy industry  is just pathetic. 

Ask yourself, what are your bones made of? What builds strong bones? What is osteoporosis, a loss of what from the bones? Almost everyone, including educated medical personnel, dietitians and even physicians, will answer, Calcium! This is a big mistake! We are so programmed to believe that bones are made of calcium, same goes to people believing that soy based food is a healthy food. In this case, I'm talking about unfermented soy food.      

Here's the truth. If you calcium supplements and eat calcium-rich foods, you will build up excess calcium in your system coupled with mineral deficiency and imbalances, that will cause plaque in arteries, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypertension, hypothyroidism, obesity, type 2 diabetes and many other diseases as well. 

We we took sea salt and rock salt out from our diets, we lost part of the nutritional value of our foods. Adding calcium to our diets to try correct multiple mineral deficiencies and prevent of treat osteoporosis won't help. It will make your mineral imbalances even worse. Today, nearly all of us believe that we need extra calcium to have healthy bones and prevent osteoporosis. More is better, so we add calcium. 

Worst of all, we feed our children calcium-rich milk, in the mistaken belief that it will give them strong bones. By doing this, we are condemning them to hardening of the arteries later in life, hypothyroidism and even obesity. We can all give thanks to the milk industry for that lie. 

Too much calcium causes an imbalance of minerals in the body. This leads to accumulation of calcium in the tissues. This calcium excess not only causes huge changes in our intercellular metabolism, but also leads to calcium deposits intracellular spaces. This calcium deposits form plaque throughout our arteries, kidney stones, gallstones and joints as well. 

Now, if you've been prescribed an osteoporosis drug such as Fosamax or Boniva, it is very important that you understand how these drugs work before putting them into your body. Using these types of pharmaceutical drugs is the worst way to attempt to treat or prevent osteoporosis and I'll tell you why. Even though they will increase your bone density, these drugs are poison! They work by killing off certain cells in your bones called osteoclasts. Osteoclasts destroy the bone as part of the natural bone regeneration process. Killing off these cells means you are left with only osteoblasts, which will increase bone density but not bone strength.

As a result, your bones lose their natural ability to build new bone and readjust to the constantly changing forces applied. Now, you have thicker bones with less strength, which actually increases your risk of bone fractures. Additionally, these drugs have been linked to some terrible side effects, including increased risk of eye problems such as blurry vision, pain and swelling, liver damage, bone fractures, esophageal cancer, etc.  

By now, you must be wondering, what to eat and avoid. Well, below are the some of the lists of nutrients or food to eat and avoid:

Avoid

Food which has gluten

Processed and fast food

Food which uses vegetable oil for cooking

Table salt

What to eat

Organically grown vegetables/fruits

Omega 3 fatty acids

Vitamin K 

Sea salt/Rock salt (add in water when drinking)

Lastly, exercise and get appropriate sunshine exposure. Stay tuned.