Still A Fool Robot

[yerrag]

A cousin came visiting from Canada and stayed with us for a few days. She brought, along with chocolates, a bottle of a tasty supplement called Nature's Bounty "Calcium with Vitamin D3" Gummies. Since it's from Canada, it also was worded "Calcium et vitamine D3" Gelifies. Below it read "Helps in the Development and Maintenance of Bones and Teeth" and "Aide au developpement et au maintien des os et des dents."

So thoughtful of her. It was intended for my mom. But since it was gummy bear, I appropriated it and started to take 1 or 2 gummies each day for the past week. Lucky for my mom though.

I started to feel my fingers stiffen, especially at night. At first I wondered why. That it hit me. I read again the label and there it was: Calcium (Calcium Phosphate, Tribasic) 250mg, Vitamin D3 (Cholicalciferol) 12.5 mcg, and Phosphorus (Calcium Phosphate, Tribasic) 115mg. For each gummy.

I had read the label already before, but because it is gummy bear, it was yummy and for the time let go of my senses and just honed in on the goodness of calcium and just ignored the phosphate part. When the stiffness came, it didn't take long for me to make the connection.

By the way, my mom already takes calcium from eggshells and also magnesium from Natural Calm's magnesium glycinate, so there was no need for the gummy bear for her. She was too busy with the chocolates anyway.

Anyway, just wanted to share. I hate to throw away this bottle of gummy bear. Maybe I should give this away to someone who's been a pain in the neck?

p.s. Thankfully, my cousin doesn't regard me as a pain in the neck. Good thoughts, and that's what matters.

Also put this under "Asking for Help or Advice" but couldn't change it. If a moderator can reclassify it, that would be great!

 

[Constatine]

Honestly most oral supplements are terrible. Ray Peat advises against oral supplementation I think due to poor quality products.

 

[yerrag]

I'm trying to find some material about the effects of taking calcium phosphate. I've searched Ray Peat's writings and interviews through Steve's LIGHT site, but the closest thing I could find is about calcium getting into our tissues causing arthritis, scleroderma etc. He also talked about how sometimes calcium is maligned for its effects, without giving due consideration to what the calcium came with such the aspartate, orotate, phosphate etc., but he didn't cite specific instances where they could have negative effects.

Are there any references? I'm curious as to why taking calcium phosphate caused my fingers to lose their flexibility and becoming stiff out of taking calcium phosphate after about 3 days.

 

[yerrag]

Having a hard time finding articles on tribasic calcium phosphate that are negative on it.

Here is a pubmed abstract, saying good things about it: [Digestive absorption of calcium phosphates in man]. - PubMed - NCBI
But I really don't know the methodology.

But I just wonder what the point is to taking a calcium supplement when phosphate is what it seeks to balance (from foods high in phosphate such as meat) when the supplement itself contains phosphate. It just becomes a wash, doesn't it? Might as well not take any calcium supplementation rather than tribasic calcium phosphate for its calcium.

Ray Peat has this to say about calcium phosphate:

For about twenty years it has been clear that the metabolic problems that cause calcium to be lost from bones cause calcium to increase in the soft tissues, such as blood vessels. The role of phosphate in forming calcium phosphate crystals had until recently been assumed to be passive, but some specific "mechanistic" effects have been identified. For example, increased phosphate increases the inflammatory cytokine, osteopontin (Fatherazi, et al., 2009), which in bone is known to activate the process of decalcification, and in arteries is involved in calcification processes (Tousoulis, et al., 2012). In the kidneys, phosphate promotes calcification (Bois and Selye, 1956), and osteopontin, by its activation of inflammatory T-cells, is involved in the development of glomerulonephritis, as well as in inflammatory skin reactions (Yu, et al., 1998). High dietary phosphate increases serum osteopontin, as well as serum phosphate and parathyroid hormone, and increases the formation of tumors in skin (Camalier, et al., 2010). Phosphate, activation, and aging.