The Sneaky Ways Your Body Might Reveal You Have A Calcium Deficiency

If you don’t get enough, your body will tell you – and trust us, you’ll want to listen.

On Assignment For HuffPost

Despite growing up with celebrities donning milk moustaches on glossy magazine pages and TV commercials, many of us don’t prioritise our calcium intake as adults as much as we should.

And who can blame us? There are so many other nutrients to chase – like vitamin B12, magnesium and probiotics.

Those are important, of course, but calcium shouldn’t be neglected, either.

Calcium is a mineral that helps maintain strong bones, teeth, nails and hair. It’s also critical for many other body systems, as it helps muscles, the heart and nerves to work, according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

If you aren’t getting enough, a calcium deficiency (also called hypocalcemia) can show up in sneaky ways that are sometimes hard to detect.

“Calcium isn’t just about bones; it’s essential for every cell in the body that needs to contract, signal or fire,” Dr Damola Aje, a board-certified endocrinologist and co-director of a Bone Density Program at Berkshire Medical Center, told HuffPost. “Muscles need calcium to contract and relax. Nerves need it to transmit signals.”

If this deficiency continues, it can make your bones weaker and raise your risk of osteoporosis, a disease that makes bones brittle, according to the NIAMS.

“Beyond bone density, adequate calcium reduces the risk of osteoporosis, fractures, and has been associated with lower blood pressure,” Dr Aje said, adding that she sees patients who haven’t addressed their calcium deficiency in decades and have lost significant bone mass because of it. “Prevention is so much easier than treatment.”

Because calcium is so vital, your body will try its best to maintain its fill of calcium any way it can. “Your body will actually pull calcium from your bones to keep blood levels normal, which is why a blood test can look fine even when your bones are being silently depleted,” Dr Aje explained.

Calcium also affects blood clotting and normal heart function, which can lead to bleeding complications. Dr Francesco Bajani, an emergency and internal physician and founder of CheckUP MD, told HuffPost that........

© HuffPost