by If your doctor told you to take it, I’m not telling you to stop. But I would encourage you to read the rest of this email and maybe have a conversation about the current research.
I’ll make this short and sweet–calcium supplements don’t appear to work all that well for keeping your bones strong, although dietary calcium from actual food does offer a modest benefit. And there’s some evidence that calcium supplements do some harm by causing calcification of arteries, which you don’t really want.
But back to bone health. What can you take or do to increase the strength of your bones and prevent fractures?
As usual, exercise is at the top of the list. There’s a law in physiology called Wolff’s Law that states that bone adapts to the loads placed upon it. Load your bones with more force, and they’ll get stronger.
The research shows that two types of exercise work the best, especially in combination: weightlifting and running (or jumping). Weight lifting stresses the bones from within, and the pounding of the pavement from running and jumping stresses the bones from the outside.
Supplementing for bone health is still a thing, but it’s not just about calcium, as we’ve all been led to believe. Our old friends, magnesium, vitamin K-2, and vitamin D, are the combination shown to work best for optimal calcium absorption.
But the exercise part is the most important. I’ve been touting the benefits of K-2, D3, and Magnesium for years (all of those are on my list of basics here at the office), but the exercise component is the most important. If we could put the effects of exercise in a pill, it would be the most potent supplement on earth.
