The Calcium Myth--WE have been duped by the dairy & calcium supplement industry

[Guest guest]

The Calcium Myth--Too Much is Really Bad for You! http://www.eons.com/blogs/entry/543-The-Calcium-Myth-Too-Much-is-Really-Bad-for-You- Milk cows produce large amounts of milk every day, which as we all know, is very rich in calcium. Yet, the cows eat grass and other plant foods which contain very little calcium.Milk cows clearly excrete more calcium than they take in. In less than a year’s time, the amount of calcium in an average milk cow’s milk is greater than the total amount in its body.Where does this calcium come from?Do cows drink milk? Well, no. Do they take calcium supplements? The answer to this puzzle is that the food cows eat contains a high level of magnesium, silica and potassium. Through a process called “biological transmutations,” cows manufacture their own calcium right inside their bones. With the aid of hormone or enzyme elements, the silica in a cow’s diet combines with carbon to form calcium; while magnesium combines with oxygen to form calcium; and potassium combines with hydrogen to form calcium. The French biologist C. Louis Kervran was the first to postulate this theory which has subsequently been verified by other scientists, most notably the Japanese microbiologist, Professor Hisatoki Komaki. Most likely, this is how the bones in your own body form calcium and helps explain why study after study (including the recent Women’s Health Initiative study) show that a high intake of calcium through dairy products or supplements does not reduce the development of osteoporosis or incidents of fractures in elderly people. In fact, the more calcium you consume the more likely it is for you have these problems.People who live in countries where the consumption of dairy products is the highest actually have the highest levels of osteoporosis. This debilitating bone disease is a near epidemic in the United States, Britain and Sweden; yet is barely exists in Japan and China.In the United States, one out two women will break a bone due to osteoporosis and one out of every eight men. After a hip fracture, one in five dies within a year.The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyramid recommends you eat 2-3 servings of dairy products per day. The U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of calcium is 1,200 mg for people who are 50 and older (1,000 mg if you are under 50).The Department of Agriculture and the FDA are both “out to lunch” when it comes to their positions on calcium. They have tragically become part of the problem.We now know with absolute certainty high calcium consumption interferes with calcium absorption and results in weaker bones, calcium deposits, bone spurs, and kidney stones. Even more frightening, excess calcium has been linked with prostate cancer in men and ovarian cancer in women. In a Harvard study of male health professionals, men who drank two or more glasses of milk a day were almost twice as likely to develop advanced prostate cancer as those who didn't drink milk at all. Moreover, the association appears to be with calcium itself, rather than with dairy products in general.Making matters worse, only a quarter of the adult population can full digest milk—in the U.S. alone, 50 million adults have lost the ability to make an enzyme called lactace that breaks down milk sugar lactose. Included are 50% of Hispanic adults, 75% of African American adults, and a whopping 90% of Asian American adults. If you drink milk and are “lactose intolerant” you experience nausea, diarrhea, cramps and bloating.The American public and apparently the government as well, have been duped by the dairy industry and the calcium supplement industry—our assumptions and policies on these topic need to be examined. The RDA’s need to be cut in half, and people should drink less milk, not more.