3 ways to boost your calcium levels

Find out how to keep bone breakages at bay and improve your overall health

Boost your calcium levels and improve your health

You mightn’t realise its significance now, but your calcium intake is a bit like saving your pennies for a worthy investment in the future (an investment in preventing bone fractures when you’re older, that is).

Here are easy ways to keep bone breakages at bay…

1. Sweat less

We lose around 40mg of calcium a day through sweat, which is equivalent to the calcium content in 100g of grilled eggplant. Exercise-enthusiasts and Bikram-yogis naturally lose a lot more. If you’re unwilling to add extra calcium-containing foods to your diet to compensate for the amount you lose in sweat, try mixing up your routine to include exercises that don’t shed excessive amounts of sweat a few times a week… or you may need to check into the calcium clinic for an assessment of your levels.

2. Soak up some sunlight

With warnings about skin cancer rife, many of us are shielding ourselves from sunlight altogether. This isn’t good news for our levels of vitamin D, though, which is produced by sunlight exposure and essential in the body’s absorption of calcium. According to Cancer Council Australia, a few minutes’ exposure to sunlight on the face, arms and hands before or after the peak UV periods – 10am and 3pm – is sufficient to maintain adequate vitamin D levels during warmer months.

3. Drink less soft drink

Containing large amounts of phosphorous, soft drinks interfere with the body’s absorption of calcium (how dare our one-calorie diet colas be so deceiving!). The company soft drinks keep at meal times (pizza, chips and other salty foods) may also play a part in interfering with calcium absorption as they increase the amount of calcium lost through urine.

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