Featuring Dr. Wade, MD, FRCP
, Benefits of Calcium Supplements
Duration: 1 minute, 53 seconds

We recognize that calcium is important for bone primarily, also muscle function.  

But, calcium is going to be important for good quality teeth condition, but probably for most adults the biggest concern is their bone. So, we want to ensure that as we grow older, our bones stay healthy.  

That’s important that the calcium is absorbed, gets incorporated into our bone so you have to have good dietary calcium to incorporate the calcium to your bone so that will maintain bone health, bone strength. And, as we get older, as our bone becomes weaker, we can have osteoporosis, there’s less concern.  

It sort of prevents loss of bone as we age as well. So, it builds bone as we are growing. A growing skeleton is very important for your kids and adolescents, and in adult life very important to maintain bone and prevent as much bone loss as we age.

Most of the calcium supplementation is looked at in women and post-menopausal women for osteoporosis.  here are not a lot of studies looking at men, so we assume that it’s probably going to be equivalent for men as in women.  

Probably as important to point out that in young kids and adolescents with their growing bones, they need to get the calcium in their diet and the calcium supplementation if they are not getting it in their diet through primary dairy sources in kids and adolescents they should be supplementing with some calcium in kids and adolescents.

So, the people that are best qualified to answer calcium supplements and dietary calcium would be a dietitian. We don’t all have access to a dietitian, so I suggest initially you want to speak to your family doctor and then if there are questions or concerns, then the family doctor could initiate a referral to a dietician.  

Presenter: Dr. John Wade, Rheumatologist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Rheumatologist