Hello there and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinegel.

And today I have a question from Karen about calcium supplementation. Now I have to tell

you I always love the opportunity to settle a marital squabble. You can think of me as

the judge John Hodgman of nutrition. So the opening of Karen's email hooked me right

away. My husband, she wrote, is always hounding me to take my calcium supplement with a food

source of vitamin C. This is not always possible, especially since I follow my doctors recommendation

to take calcium and magnesium supplements separately. My calcium supplement already contains

vitamin C. So is taking it with additional C really necessary? Before I render my ruling

in this case, let's take a quick sidebar to address a couple of issues that Karen's question

introduces. To tell you the truth, I was a little confused by the doctor's recommendation

to take magnesium and calcium separately. Calcium and magnesium are both important for bone

health and foods that are high in one are often high in the other as well. This does not

appear to be a problem in terms of absorption or metabolism. In fact, consuming them together

may actually provide some benefit. These two minerals are often combined into a single product

affectionately referred to as a calmag supplement. But of course, nutritional supplements often

provide nutrients in amounts far, far beyond what you'd get from foods. And high doses

of a single nutrient can create imbalances or other issues such as inhibited absorption

that would be very unlikely to occur if you were getting your nutrients from food sources.

And you know what? Calcium over supplementation is a real problem in my opinion. Middle-aged

women have been terrorized by the calcium industrial complex into taking huge doses of supplemental

calcium with or without magnesium in an effort to fend off osteoporosis. It's not that

osteoporosis is not a real threat. The problem is that most women don't really start to take

...