Calcium

Calcium is a mineral your body needs to build and maintain strong bones and to perform many important functions. Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body. Almost all of the body’s calcium is stored in bones and teeth, giving them structure and hardness.
Your body needs calcium for muscles to move and for nerves to carry messages between your brain and every part of your body. Calcium also helps blood vessels circulate blood throughout the body and helps release hormones that affect many body functions.

• Your body needs calcium to build and maintain strong bones.
Over 99% of your body’s calcium is stored in your bones and teeth (Institute of Medicine (US) Committee to Review Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium, 2011)
In the bloodstream, it is used to send nerve signals, release hormones like insulin, and regulate the contraction and expansion of muscles and blood vessels (Institute of Medicine (US) Committee to Review Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium, 2011)
It’s so important that if you don’t get the recommended amount from your diet, your body will take it from your skeleton and teeth to use elsewhere, weakening your bones.
• They may help prevent bone loss in postmenopausal women
After menopause, women lose bone mass due to low estrogen levels.
Fortunately, supplements can help. Several studies have suggested that giving postmenopausal women calcium supplements – usually around 1000 mg per day – can reduce bone loss by 1-2% (Lamy & Burckhardt, 2014)
The effect seems to be greater in women with low calcium intake and in the first two years of taking supplements.
Additionally, there does not appear to be any additional benefit to taking larger doses (Anderson et al., 2012)

• They can aid in fat loss
Studies have associated low calcium intake with high body mass index (BMI) and high percentage of body fat (Bueno et al., 2008)
A 2016 study looked at the effects of giving a daily 600 mg calcium supplement to overweight and obese college students with very low calcium intakes.
The study found that those who received a supplement containing 600 mg of calcium and 125 IU of vitamin D lost more body fat on a calorie-restricted diet than those who did not receive the supplement (Zhu et al. , 2013)
It is often recommended to take vitamin D with calcium, as this improves its absorption.
• Calcium may help reduce the risk of colon cancer
According to a large study, calcium from dairy products and supplements may reduce the risk of colon cancer (Park et al., 2009)
An earlier review of 10 studies found similar results (Cho et al., 2004)
• Supplements may help improve metabolic markers
Several studies have shown that taking calcium supplements can improve metabolic markers, especially when taken with vitamin D.
In a 2016 study, 42 pregnant women took supplements containing calcium and vitamin D. Several of their metabolic markers improved, including blood pressure and inflammation markers (Asemi et al., 2016)
Other research has shown that children of women who took calcium supplements during pregnancy have lower blood pressure at age seven than children of mothers who did not (Jamshidi & Kelishadi , 2015)
In a recent study, more than 100 overweight, vitamin D-deficient women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) were given either a calcium and vitamin D supplement or a placebo.
Those who took the supplement showed improvement in inflammation markers, insulin and
triglyceride levels (Asemi et al., 2015; Foroozanfard et al., 2015)