Although I don't agree with everything in this interesting article it reaffirms Moreless's claim that calcium is a powerful pain killer and can even replace opiates ! Remarkable!



The application of adequate nutrition and fitness.
Calcium Deficiency
Filed under: Calcium — admin @ 10:01 am

Another reason for an adequate calcium intake and for keeping calcium tablets in the medicine chest at all times is that this mineral is a pain killer par excellence. Old medical textbooks give as the treatment for the sharp stabbing pains of pleurisy-than which there are few worse-injections of calcium. Why calcium has not been used more widely in alleviating other pain remains a mystery. One physician tells me that he uses no opiates but injects one to four grams of calcium gluconate into the veins of patients suffering even excruciating pain and that relief occurs almost immediately. Although the severely ill person or one enduring a blinding headache usually cannot absorb enough calcium taken by mouth to relieve pain, a less ill person can. The migraine sufferer, for example, can be helped most by taking calcium between headaches. For years I have told people to take calcium tablets before visiting a dentist; the mineral not only helps them relax and feel less pain but makes life easier for the dentist. It has been my experience that adequate calcium usually relieves the itching of hives in a half-hour and the pain of arthritis within one to three days. Since the publication of my book on baby feeding, I have been amazed at the number of young mothers who have written or told me personally that they had experienced no pain during delivery. Invariably they have written or said, “I thought I was having gas pains when the baby was born.” Now I tell women to grab a vitamin-D capsule as soon as labor starts and to take two or three calcium tablets every hour until they are wheeled into the delivery room. Regardless of the cause of pain, calcium can usually do something to relieve it; if no relief comes, blame it on poor absorption.

A further reason for obtaining adequate calcium is that it is necessary for the clotting of blood. This need for calcium in blood clotting can be a matter of life or death after an accident. A year ago I interviewed a woman in her forties, a milk-hater whose calcium intake was almost nil; she had suffered from nosebleed most of her life. At the time I saw her, the hemorrhages were so severe that she was paperwhite and exhausted; she was being given blood transfusions every few days. Her hemoglobin had been 45 per cent the previous day prior to a transfusion and 58 per cent afterward. Vitamin K, another nutrient essential for clotting, had not decreased the clotting time. I planned a diet containing liver daily and a quart of tiger’s milk to which were added powdered bone and dilute hydrochloric acid. I suggested that she take 25,000 units of vitamin D daily for three days and during this period three calcium tablets every two hours, sipping tiger’s milk with them. A letter written 10 days later gives the following report: 1 “Had a hemo taken yesterday and it was 79. Pretty good, huh? A queer thing. I told you about the hot flashes and my nose would start practically every time I had a hard one. Well, I haven’t had one hot flash since I saw you. The second day was blistering hot. My nose bled a very little bit. None at all since. Gosh, sure is wonderful not to be afraid to breathe for fear of a nosebleed.”

The 1 per cent of calcium in the soft tissues has still other functions. According to Dr. Cantarow a lack of calcium allows cataracts to form, “probably due to the effect of diminished calcium concentration upon colloid aggregation.” 2 Cataracts are undeniably common during the advanced years when calcium deficiencies are legion. Calcium appears to be necessary before vitamin C can function effectively. Physicians have often been afraid to give adequate calcium to persons suffering from arthritis, thinking that still more minerals might be deposited in the joints; the lack of calcium necessary to help vitamin C in forming normal cartilage around the joints appears to be a major cause of the disease. Calcium decreases cell-wall permeability and thus prevents harmful substances from entering the cells. This mineral is also essential in maintaining normal muscle tone, or excellent posture, and strong muscular contraction; it is for this reason so valuable during labor at childbirth. Calcium has been found also to delay fatigue and to hasten recovery.

A lack of calcium causes susceptibility to decay of teeth and demineralization of bones which cannot be overcome with any amount of vitamin D alone. Both calcium and vitamin D must be abundantly supplied, absorbed, and retained if dental and skeletal health is to be maintained. Although phosphorus is combined with calcium in bones and teeth and is possibly more important than any other mineral in the body.

Many authorities believe that the deficiency of calcium is more widespread than that of any other nutrient; milk is the only dependable source in the American diet. There is, of course, calcium in sour milk, cultured buttermilk, yogurt, and any food prepared with milk. The calcium is lost in the making of cheese. Churned buttermilk contains little calcium because cream is a poor source.

A certain amount of calcium can be obtained from mustard and turnip greens, soybeans and blackstrap molasses, but these foods are rarely eaten daily. The quantity needed to meet an adult’s calcium requirements per day from the following foods, listed in medical textbooks as good sources of calcium, would be 72 apples, 80 bananas, 42 oranges, 11 cups of carrots, 33 eggs, 77 potatoes, Or 214 dates; the quantities of other foods listed are even more ridiculous. Certainly there are healthy peoples who do not drink milk, but each has a source of calcium; the Hawaiians’ source is poi; the Orientals’, soybean curds. The Eskimos, the African natives and formerly the American Indians obtained calcium from bones of fish, small game, and birds. Dr. Michael Walsh found that Mexican Indians, “starving” by our standards, had a calcium intake equivalent to eight quarts of milk daily; this calcium was obtained from the soft limestone used in grinding corn for tortillas. In America the calcium needs of a person who does not drink milk are not met unless he takes a calcium salt, a poor substitute indeed for milk.

Many calcium salts are available. Calcium gluconate and calcium lactate, or calcium combined with the sugars glucose and lactose, usually absorb more readily than does dicalcium phosphate or calcium chloride. Bone meal, or ground bone, is often poorly absorbed. Fine bone powder, however, is quickly dissolved by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach and hence is absorbed readily. Cereals, homemade breads, and many other foods can be advantageously fortified with powdered bone.

Although calcium salts are not harmful, only a limited quantity can be absorbed even under ideal conditions. Taking larger quantities is somewhat like dropping beads through the hole in a spool of thread; the spool is not harmed, but the procedure borders on stupidity if expensive beads are lost. Physicians sometimes fear that taking calcium salts may cause kidney stones. The formation of such stones, however, appears to result from a combination of innumerable physiological abnormalities including too alkaline urine, possibly the lack of vitamin A, and a number of combined factors such as an undersupply of unsaturated fatty acids and/or protein or excessive phosphorus which allow minerals to be lost in the urine


http://www.nufit.info/2008/02/03/calcium-deficiency/