Could We Be Having Too Much Calcium? Calcium : Magnesium Balance Discussion

[Sani]

One of the strangest things about my body is that I seem to need excessive amounts of calcium. I have some hypotheses as to why which I will get to.

But, what I have noticed is that all calcium antagonists make me very ill if I'm not getting exorbitant amounts of calcium to go along with them. Vitamin K2 and magnesium both make me sick without large amounts of calcium. I remember taking vitamin K2 a few years ago without much calcium and I felt like I had severe low blood pressure and felt very weak, couldn't get out of bed. I developed severe pain in the center of my back and it felt like bone pain.

Magnesium makes me extremely fatigued if I take it in the morning or afternoon. However, if I take it at night, I feel wired all night and can't sleep. I can only tolerate about 500 mg of magnesium per 2000-2500mg of calcium consumed per day. Anything more makes me feel similar to how vitamin K2 makes me feel.

One of the signs of hypocalcemia is parasthesia. In parasthesia, you essentially lose circulation and nerve function in a peripheral tissue, most commonly the finger tips or toes. It can last for quite a while until it randomly reverses itself. When I was eating a lower calcium diet (on the order of 400 mg per day max), I would get these parasthesias frequently.

Another symptom I experience on low calcium diets or with calcium antagonists is the visual migraine. In a visual migraine, a lightning bolt shape appears in the middle of your field of vision and begins to spread out and become larger as it takes up more of your field of vision. The first time it happened I freaked out thinking I was going blind. It lasts 20-30 minutes and then disappears.

I am also intolerant to vitamin A which can act as a calcium antagonist in some contexts, but that is a much more complicated story that involves a course of accutane when I was 15 and a vitamin A overdose from a few years ago which have forced me to eat a near zero-vitamin A diet for several years now.

All of the above symptoms are completely eliminated by getting large amounts of calcium, at least 1000mg per day but I feel best on 2000-2500mg per day (mostly from milk).

As to my hypotheses explaining why I need so much calcium. my body makes about 3 times the amount of oxalate that an average person does which predisposes me to kidney stones (I passed a kidney stone at the age of 23). Oxalate binds to calcium, rendering it unavailable for use by the body. Therefore, I think I need very large amounts of calcium to overcome the amount of lost calcium due to oxalate binding.

Hi stargazer, since you have battled with oxalate problems I wanted to ask have you had any neck problems like cracking, popping or crunching noises or anything like that?

 

[Dr. B]

Thanks for the informative video @AnonE

If you want a 1 to 1 ratio of Calcium to Magnesium without supplementing you really need to limit dairy.

Ray Peat has encouraged milk drinking because he was after a Calcium to Phosphorous ratio around 1 to 1!

Maybe you can satisfy both ratios by going mostly fruitarian with 50g dark chocolate, less than 200ml milk and no grains, nuts, peas, beans, seafood, fish or meat!

the phosphate itself is a calcium antagonist, so I think if you're 11 on phosphate, calcium and magnesium, that may be too low on calcium. you'd almost always need to supplement magnesium in order to get it 1:1 with both calcium and phosphate.

Ray favors a cal mag ratio of 4:1 with around 1600/400 mg of elemental calcium and magnesium daily.

Magnesium is needed for enzymatic reactions needed to produce energy by the mitochondria. In oxidative metabolism, CO2 is produced. Inside the cell, CO2 turns into carbonic acid, and because it is hydrophilic, it leaves the cell, taking with it calcium and sodium, and water. This keeps calcium from accumulating inside the cell, thus keeping calcification at bay.

Bicarbonates in the ecf can also be 'borrowed' by the cell, and be used to transport calcium out of the cell using the abovementioned process. Bicarbonates are abundant in an alkaline ecf environment, which is why an acidic environment makes calcification more likely.

but Ray said he drinks a half gallon milk, and iirc 1 liter or 2 liters OJ a day? that would provide 2500mg calcium, and maybe around 1600mg phosphate, and around 250-300mg magnesium from the milk, plus another 100+mg from the OJ?

 

[ArtIt]

I use calcium carbonate. Peat said in on of his podcasts that calcium carbone is the best one. Calcium citrate flashes calcium out. Here is a table how grams of calcium carbonate translat to calcuim that we need. I consume daily 1.7 gram of calcium either from calcium carbonate powder or from the cheese.

in 0.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.2 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 0.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.3 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 1.3 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.5 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 1.7 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.6 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.1 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.7 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.9 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.0 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 3.3 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.2 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 3.7 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.3 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.1 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.4 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.6 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.7 gram(s) of elemental calcium

 

[Dr. B]

I use calcium carbonate. Peat said in on of his podcasts that calcium carbone is the best one. Calcium citrate flashes calcium out. Here is a table how grams of calcium carbonate translat to calcuim that we need. I consume daily 1.7 gram of calcium either from calcium carbonate powder or from the cheese.

in 0.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.2 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 0.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.3 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 1.3 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.5 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 1.7 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.6 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.1 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.7 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 0.9 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 2.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.0 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 3.3 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.2 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 3.7 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.3 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.1 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.4 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.5 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.6 gram(s) of elemental calcium
in 4.9 gram(s) of calcium carbonate => 1.7 gram(s) of elemental calcium

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