I had not really bothered too much about Calcium. I eat quite a bit in my diet and I take Calcium with other supplementation (in things like Ca AKG and Ca Citrate).
Ca has a complex metabolism linked to Vitamin D, but also Citrate can chelate Calcium and reduce the free ion concentration.
More recently I found my blood pressure was going up a little and I think the cause of this related to calcium.
I found that low calcium levels do have an effect on blood pressure.
However, there is an argument that high calcium levels cause greater calcification (unsurprisingly) and higher calcium levels are contrary to longevity
I have looked back at my weekly blood tests most of which have a calcium value and it does appear to me that there maybe a sweet spot from the middle tending towards the top end of the normal range. However, I wonder what other people’s experience is with this or whether people have a better steer on the target for serum calcium.
Calcium is maintained within a fairly narrow range from 8.5 to 10.5 mg/dl (4.3 to 5.3 mEq/L or 2.2 to 2.7 mmol/L). Normal values and reference ranges may vary among laboratories as much as 0.5 mg/dl.
My current thoughts are that if you are running along the bottom of the normal range probably your systems are struggling to maintain sufficient calcium and you should be looking for something in the middle to upper range.
My last two blood draws mine has been 9.4 and 9.7. I drink probably 12 ounces of milk a day and every once in a while I’ll pop one of those Thorne dicalcium malate capsules. I try to keep my calcium intake on the higher end because I do a lot of high impact exercise and for some reason have always been obsessed with having strong bones.
Thirty-three young male and female C-57 black mice were given approximately 300 μg of calcium pantothenate daily in drinking water. Forty-one control mice did not receive the vitamin supplement.
The mean life span for the mice given supplementary calcium pantothenate was 653.1 days and that for the control mice was 549.8 days. The statistical difference between the 2 groups is P = 0.05 (T test) 0.01 (U test).
The mice which received the vitamin supplement maintained slightly greater body weight after they were approximately 250 days old.
With regard to calcium and CVD,
After analyzing 10 years of medical tests on more than 2,700 people in a federally funded heart disease study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and elsewhere conclude that taking calcium in the form of supplements may raise the risk of plaque buildup in arteries and heart damage, although a diet high in calcium-rich foods appears be protective.
So kefir, yogurt, and aged cheddar would be good sources of calcium.