Calcium and Dairy

Seeing as I do dentistry for a living it’s not surprising that I am often asked about calcium and whether to take supplements or not, or whether drinking more milk is the answer. Personally, I do not recommend calcium supplementation as it is easy to consume enough calcium from our diet via green vegetables, seaweed, nuts and seeds and so forth. Notice I did not mention milk or dairy in my suggestions. Now there is a good reason for this and that is whilst dairy may contain calcium it is not adequately absorbed by your body. Also, dairy proteins are difficult to digest and encourage the build-up of mucus leading to things like sinusitis. Those diary proteins are also highly acidic which means your body has to buffer (counteract) the acidity by pulling calcium from your bones into your blood. So dairy actually depletes your body of calcium rather than acting as a source of it. See calcium and milk dairy and calcium for more detailed information.