Osteoporosis and Calcium  -- It's Not What You Think There is a myth that we all thought was true about the importance of consuming enough dairy products so that you would have strong bones and never develop osteoporosis.  Well, it turns out that the myth is not true and the scientific community has known about it for a long time.  I learned the truth about calcium from many sources, but I like the way Howard Lyman tells the story in his latest book, No More Bull.  He writes...   There isn't any science out there that confirms that milk is productive of strong bone health. Indeed, all of the science points in the exact opposite direction.  The giant Nurses Health Study of over 120,000 women aged thirty to fifty-five (at enrollment) found that those who drank three or more servings of milk per day had a higher rate of hip fractures than those who drank no milk or very little milk.  Study after study shows that those countries that consume the most dairy suffer the most osteoporosis.  T. Colin Campbell's massive study of nutrition in China found that the average calcium intake of the Chinese people was about half that of Americans, that little of the calcium in the Chinese diet (unlike the American diet) came from dairy, and that osteoporosis is practically unknown in China, whereas it is a public health scourge in America. As Dr. Joel Fuhrman writes in Eat to Live, bone loss is a complex process, not something that can be prevented merely by massive intakes of calcium.  Osteoporosis is not generally caused by insufficient intake of calcium, but rather by excessive loss of calcium in the urine.  What causes this calcium loss?  Many factors are at play, but primary among them is the consumption of animal protein, which is highly acidic and leaches calcium from the bones to serve as a buffer in the bloodstream. (Other factors contributing to excess calcium excretion include salt, caffeine, refined sugar, alcohol, and nicotine.) No reputable scientist would claim that our high rate of osteoporosis is caused by a low calcium diet.  It is in fact caused by the Standard American Diet, which is increasingly loaded down with dairy.  Dr. John McDougall explains, "The acid and protein from the meat and dairy products damage the bone tissue, thus causing calcium and other bone materials to be lost through the kidneys.  Deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, and other plant-food-derived nutrients further contribute to the deterioration of the bones. This is why the heaviest consumers of milk and meat in the world--Americans and Europeans--have the weakest sickest bones." For several decades now, advocates of a vegan diet have been making precisely the arguments that McDougall has summarized so well. The science is not new. It was way back in 1968, in fact, that an article in Lancet associated the meat-based diet with osteoporosis. The article pointed out that the urine of meat eaters, unlike that of vegetarians, is "predominantly on the acid side of neutral."  It concluded that "The association of this observation with the increasing evidence of bone-mass loss with age is inescapable."  Again and again, vegan authors and spokesmen have highlighted the plethora of studies that demonstrate a direct correlation between dairy consumption and the incidence of osteoporosis.  The problem, after all, is worst in North America, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia--exactly where dairy consumption is the highest.   Although the science is not in dispute, the message never seems to get through the media filter to the general public.  Without any question, an excess of animal protein causes osteoporosis.  Dairy, of course, contains animal protein.  Moreover, the calcium in plants is more highly absorbable than the calcium in dairy.  Your best defense against osteoporosis is a plant-based diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables.  And yet, I can practically guarantee you that the next time the subject of osteoporosis comes up on the network evening news, a "medical expert" will be trotted out to remind everybody to make sure to drink plenty of milk.  You can practically see the National Dairy Council pulling the strings. ************************************ Howard Lyman talks about the "media filter" as one of the reasons that the general public rarely gets the truth about nutrition. In the China Study, Colin Campbell has an entire section of the book entitled, "Why Haven't You Heard This Before?" He sums it up in four words: money, ego, power and control. And the truth about osteoporosis is just one of many truths that you will learn about in The China Studa...Jim Hicks