Reviewed by medical experts • For informational purposes only
What is calcium deficiency? The silent mineral shortfall that thins bones for years - causes, signs and fixes.
Calcium deficiency means the body is not getting - or not absorbing - enough calcium to keep bones, teeth, muscles and nerves working properly. Because 99% of the body's calcium sits in the skeleton, a long-running shortfall is quietly paid out of the bones, often with no symptoms for years.
Calcium is not only a bone mineral. Every muscle contraction (including the heartbeat), every nerve signal, every blood clot uses calcium. The body keeps blood calcium within a tight range at almost any cost - and the cost is bone. When intake falls short, parathyroid hormone pulls calcium out of the skeleton to keep the blood level normal. This is why a normal blood calcium report does not rule out deficiency.
Low dietary calcium is widespread in India - national nutrition surveys repeatedly find average intakes well below recommended levels, across cities and villages alike. The reasons are structural: cereal-heavy plates, low milk and green-vegetable intake in many households, vitamin D deficiency limiting absorption, and high-phytate diets that bind calcium in the gut. Children, adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and adults over 50 carry the highest risk.
In children: poor bone growth and, when combined with vitamin D deficiency, rickets. In adults: osteopenia and osteoporosis - bones that thin silently until a small fall causes a fracture. Muscle cramps, tingling and fatigue are the nearer-term complaints. Severe, acute drops in blood calcium (rare, usually medical in cause) can be dangerous and need emergency care.
Ayurveda described bone depletion as Asthi Kshaya - a wasting of the bone tissue layer (asthi dhatu) with its own cause list and symptom picture, remarkably parallel to the modern account. Classical pharmacology also prepared mineral calcium sources - coral, pearl shell, egg shell - as fine powders (bhasma and pishti) for exactly this territory. This series follows both lenses: modern nutritional medicine first, the classical framework as interpretive depth.
Calcium deficiency is common, silent for years, and paid for by the bones - but it is one of the most correctable nutritional problems there is.
Written By
Dr. Daksh
BDS
Reviewed By
Dr. Varun Gupta
MD Pharmacology, MBBS
Last updated on
27 Sep 2022 • 06:23 PM (IST)
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